


A Decade Gone

by Angel_ite



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, everything else is sfw, the NSFW chapter is chapter 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2019-04-18 17:32:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 61,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14218167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angel_ite/pseuds/Angel_ite
Summary: You'd been serving the Armstrong family for almost three years and you had begun to take pride in this fact. The lady of your household, feeling unsafe while her husband travels, sends you to Jindosh's mansion with a hefty bag of coin and a written request for a single clockwork soldier. By nightfall, you find yourself re-employed by the Grand Inventor himself. To pay off a debt to the inventor, you are forced to serve him in a contract that will last ten years.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> TW: blood, gore, death, classism, Jindosh being a complete asshole

You’d been serving the Armstrong family for almost three years and you had begun to take pride in this fact. They were a wealthy family just at the edge of Karnaca on Amber Street, up near the Prieto Reserves. The Aventa Quarter was one of the safer neighborhoods in Karnaca, certainly the safest you had ever worked in. To say the least, you had a very cushy job that paid you decently and took care of you. There hadn’t been a moment where you had questioned your happiness or willingness to go into work each day.

Well, until today.

The Lady of the house had given you specific instructions to go downtown to Aventa Station and take the carriage to the infamous Jindosh Mansion. Her Husband, a salesmen who dealt primarily with ores and minerals, was currently away in Tyvia and would be staying there for five months. His absence left her feeling a little anxious about security on the estate. You couldn’t really blame her. While they were wealthy, they didn’t have the luxury of the Royal Guard patrolling their grounds day in and day out. In fact, the only security they really had was their serving staff—that’s you—and the fake sense of safety that comes with being a well-known family in a decent neighborhood.

Despite being in a safer part of town surrounded with equally wealthy families, there were still instances of robbery that occurred on a monthly basis. Up until the Clockwork soldiers were released, these families would just have to adapt around losing fortunes every other month.

Lady Armstrong had written at least three letters to her husband with more urgency in every new paragraph. They had been saving money for years in order to purchase a new estate in Tyvia—so that when the Lord of the house went to sell, the Lady could accompany him and live safely until they could return to Karnaca. However, with the release of the Jindosh Soldiers, the Lady felt inclined to come up with another solution.

“They cost a fraction of the price of a new estate,” she would say as you readied her morning tea and biscuits. “And from what I’ve heard, they work better than any royal guard. Just think of what a new manor would cost us—having to hire a new staff, having to maintain the grounds between sales trips—it is much more sensible to invest in a Jindosh soldier.”

You heard her say “Jindosh” more than fifteen times a day. Eventually, her husband wrote her back and permitted the purchase of a single soldier—that’s all they could afford. He also, unfortunately, insisted that she not be the one to go pick it up.

You caught a glimpse of the letter after she had discarded it. His exact words were “… Jindosh may be a genius, but he was banned from the academy for a reason. I don’t feel comfortable sending you into his house. You will send a maid and a worker in our behalf. Pick someone who you trust to represent us.”

He might as well have spelled out your name.

And so—that is how you arrived where you are now, nauseous and riding the carriage cart up the steep hill to the mansion. You were wearing your absolute best outfit; you had to repair a hole in the sleeve the night before in a nervous hurry. Next to you sat Henry, the most robust worker that the Lady could have chosen. He was hulking in size with worn skin that had grown tough due to tremendous labor. It was fairly obvious that he would be handling the mechanical murder device while you dealt with the more dangerous of the two options—speaking with Kirin Jindosh on the Armstrong’s behalf.

You had heard horrible things about his mansion; you knew that countless members of his staff had perished in the hallways of his home due to accidents with the clockworks or the man himself after rather terrible moods.

Despite your own pride, you found yourself shaking ever so slightly as you arrived at the moss-covered cobblestones that comprised the entrance to the mansion. Henry reached to open the door for the two of you and you could have sworn you saw him hesitate. If this giant of a man was afraid of Jindosh, then you certainly had reason to be as well.

To your surprise, however, the warm light of the main room immediately calmed your nerves. It wasn’t so different form the Armstrong’s lobby area. There were large wooden carvings of sea creatures lined against the walls and a single desk in front of the door that an audiograph stationed neatly next to a plate of fruits.

You were the first to step through the threshold, the sound of your footstep echoing in the empty room. “Do you think we should wait here?” Henry asks. It’s the first time he’s spoken to you all day.

“Let’s see,” your fingers aren’t trembling as bad anymore as they reach for the audiograph. The device turns on as you flick the switch and with a loud popping sound of feedback, a voice fills the room.

“Welcome to my home, stranger. The door is always open to those with the will to pass the threshold. If you are here by appointment, they proceed—and bide your time. Otherwise I’d be remiss if I didn’t inform you about the defensive mechanisms employed here—which are quite formidable! Many have entered without invitation for reasons as myriad as the fish in the ocean. But of those that have dared to explore further, very few have found their way back out.”

Any sense of calm that you had gathered left you shortly after you realized whose voice greeted you. The hint of threat in his smooth voice was enough to set you on edge before he had even gotten to the part where he admitted that some guests had never left the mansion. There was a very large, apparent trace of arrogance that dispelled the fear and replaced it with something else, something bordering irritation.

Your agitation was likely due to the fact that you had grown accustomed to the Armstrong family and their politeness and agreeable nature. “The audacity,” you mutter, balling your fists and turning toward Henry. “Can you believe the nerve of this man?”

Henry looked positively pale. He didn’t answer.

As if by some sort of summoning, the foyer doors opened and a female guardsmen passed through the doorway, her body stiff as she greeted the two of you formally. “Armstrong?” she asked. All emotions fled from you as you rushed to best represent your household. You folded your hands in front of you and replied with a curt, “Ah, yes.”

“This way, please. You will need to wait in the guest room until Mr. Jindosh is ready to greet you. He’s in the middle of a huge project, currently.”

“A huge project?” You asked as she led you to the doorway between two sets of carpeted stairs. “Forgive me, but I was under the impression that we were here by appointment. Did Mr. Jindosh not receive the Armstrong’s letter—?”

“Mr. Jindosh is aware of your appointment. He sends his condolences.”

The way she says it makes you press your lips together firmly so that you don’t end up saying anything else. Her back is to you, but you can practically see the irritated look on her face. Henry is silent, ghosting behind you despite his enormous size.

The three of you arrive in an open room with a high glass ceiling. The walls are lined with tables of food that looks like it was freshly put out. The smell of roasted rabbit swims in your head and you try to ignore the guise of it all—how they are trying to make you feel at home. The floor is made of glass, below your feet you see an arc-pylon waiting to be brought up if a threat arises. You try not to think about the possibility of someone dying in this room.

“This way,” says the guardswoman. She directs you and Henry into a small waiting room on the right. There are striped couches awaiting you as well as a couple of bookshelves full of literature. You got the immediate feeling that Mr. Jindosh was quite used to being ‘in the middle of huge projects.’

“If you’ll take a seat, Mr. Jindosh will be with you shortly.”

“Ah, if you don’t mind me asking—” you begin to say. The guardswoman pauses and you can see her hands clench into annoyed fists. You are reminded very abruptly of where you are and who you are. She’s probably dealt directly with noble men and women up until this point. Her curtesy toward you most likely won’t extend past formalities. She has every right to admonish you; you’re beneath her. “—Nevermind, I’ve sorted it out in my head.” You finish discretely, taking your seat on the less than comfortable furniture.

She gives you a curt nod, acknowledging your submission more than anything else, and takes her leave.

As soon as she’s out of ear-shot, you let out a deep sigh of relief and are shocked to hear Henry do the same. “I don’t know about you, miss,” he says, looking completely out of place on the tiny furniture. “But this whole place gives me the creeps.”

You couldn’t agree more.

The next couple of hours were spent reading books that were on the shelves and trying to stay awake as you waited for Jindosh. You took the time to recount the money that Lady Armstrong had sent with you to pay for the clockwork. It had been kept in your pouch, tightly secured to your waist. It was more money than you’d ever held in your life and likely would ever hold. It would pay for a clockwork, yes, but it would also pay for you to go back to school and for every maid in the household to feed their children for a year. You run your hands over the pouch every few seconds, astounded that its there and that you were entrusted it with it. Its true that you could have run away with it the second she let you out of her sights, but you knew that was never an option. The Armstrongs were too good to you.

In the midst of deep thought, you feel yourself begin to yawn. How long had it been since the guardswoman had left? Two hours? Three? The light coming from the glass ceiling in the main room was artificial. You had arrived hear around 2 o’clock, it would be getting darker by now, yes?

Attempting to stretch your legs, you hoist yourself up from your seat only to have your legs threaten to go out from under you. The room was moving! The glass lobby sunk in front of you as the room you were began to rise. Henry clutched a dainty pillow within his great big fists and looked like he would be ill. You place a calming hand on his forearm, though you yourself were soon to be sick as well. Fortunately, it didn’t last long, only a few seconds in fact. The room stopped with a jolting motion that sent you back into your sitting position with an undignified thud.

“By the void,” you grumble, trying to steady yourself again. This was worse than sea legs!

“You’ll have to forgive me for making you wait,” came a familiar voice, “But you see, I’m a very busy man. I’m sure you understand.”

You turn around in your seat a little too fast, obviously frightened. So much for not giving away your state of mind. Standing before you is a tall gentlemen who is mostly legs and the rest suave. His hair is styled back, his eyes thin and unforgiving. It’s the way he’s standing, too, with an arm behind his back and the other loosely holding a clipboard in front of his chest—like he’s trying to present.

And he was. This was almost exactly how you envisioned him. Complete with the smug moustache and smirk. Of course, there were paintings of him but they didn’t really do him justice. They always made him look shorter than he really was.

You have to shake yourself out of your thoughts in order to stand up and properly great him. “I do, sir. It’s no trouble.”

You give him a small curtsy; Henry bows himself slightly. Jindosh says, while you’re leaned down, “I’m used to dealing with nobility and they often times are not keen on waiting more than a half hour. But I suppose the help, such as yourself, don’t have any standards to go by.”

There’s a burning feeling in your stomach. You bite your tongue.

“We are here to represent the Armstrong family, sir. They have made arrangements to purchase a Jindosh Clockwork Soldier from you. I’ve brought the coin and a letter from the Lord of the house giving his permission to carry the money in the Armstrong name.”

He says nothing to you for a good seven seconds, merely looking you up and down with an unimpressed expression plastered on his face. You feel your ears grow warmer the lower he glances, knowing that he’s aware of your tattered clothes.

“He’s walking as he’s talking, down a railed pathway that hugs the right wall. Below there is a glass maze that allows the viewer to see inside. “Armstrong … Armstrong … Oh, yes, the miniscule manor uptown. The salesman, correct? Hm. Very well. I have the paperwork here. I’m assuming that you want a standard model, the ones that don’t have depth perception yet. Those are prototypes and while they are available for purchase, they cost a pocket’s worth more and are still under construction. I know my letter with the Lady of the house negotiated a newer model, but after later consideration, I have decided against that. Your household is far too small.”

You stiffen with indignation, “Sir, it’s not … miniscule.” There’s a bit of spite in your voice and he definitely takes notice of it. “The Armstrongs are a respectable house in Karnaca, just as deserving as any other noble household.”

He stops walking and turns to face you fully. There’s a glint of something in his eyes that you don’t like at all, directing your gaze elsewhere as his falls upon you. He says, “I don’t usually do handouts to such small families. They aren’t at risk of robbery as larger households are; they don’t provide a very good experience for the Clockwork and they don’t typically yield useful results.”

“But sir,” says Henry. His voice is thick from all the tension. “Lord Armstrong is away in Tyvia. The Lady of the house is all by herself and would feel much safer if—,”

You interrupt Henry, “Mr. Jindosh, you don’t seem to understand—,”

That does it.

Jindosh draws his clipboard in front of him and scrawls something down as he speaks, “Listen, the both of you, while I loathe having to take time away from my studies to deal with business affairs pertaining to noble men and women, I do find it incredibly insulting that the Lady and Lord of house Armstrong have sent their serving staff to address the Grand Inventor. Now. We can do this one of two ways: I can send you home with a standard Jindosh Clockwork model and you can pay the typical amount, or I can have you both sent home to your houses with a letter signed by myself stating the exact amount of time that you’ve wasted here today. Are we at an understanding?”

You feel yourself growing angrier and angrier the more he opens his mouth. This man wasn’t frightening at all. He was infuriating.

Henry rushes to say, “Yes sir, we understand. We apologize, deeply, truly.”

Jindosh isn’t looking at Henry, he’s looking at you.

“Are we at an understanding?” He repeats, slower this time.

A pause fills the space between the two of you. You take a deep breath and let it out, saying, “Yes, sir. My deepest apologies.”

“Very good,” he says, like you’re some sort of animal that he’s conditioned. “Now then. The loading area is a floor down. I’m going to assume that’s why you’re here” he gestures to Henry with the tip of his pen. The bulking man gives him a swift nod. “Meet with my staff down there, they will debrief you on the handling of a clockwork. Do mind their instructions.”

Henry doesn’t move from his spot next to you. After second, you realize that Jindosh didn’t give you instructions to go with him. He’d be leaving you alone.

The inventor didn’t seem to notice the hesitance as he continued to jot down information on the clipboard. You turn to Henry and once more place a hand on his arm, ushering him away. He goes, but only after a wary look at Jindosh then a squeeze of your shoulder.

As he leaves, you stand and wait for Jindosh to finish his note taking. He doesn’t seem to have anything left to say, glancing from his clipboard to the maze below, then back at the paper. You take the time to observe him closely; this is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity after all. The other servants will want details when you return. There’s a cook by the name of Milly back at the manor who goes on and on about Jindosh’s attractiveness. She had once seen him give a press release when he had first introduced the clockworks. While his attitude spoiled him for you, you could not help but admit she had been right. He was perfectly agreeable visually. And, yes, there was an appeal to an intelligent man. Regardless, that was all the good you could say about the Grand Inventor.

After about five minutes, you ask, “Sir, about the payment method—,”

The man sighs. He sighs! Like you had interrupted him from something important!

“Yes, yes, of course. You’re paying in coin, correct? The price was already discussed, but of course it’s going to be reduced now that you have a later model. I do hope you don’t intend to steal the rest of the money. I’ll be sure to send a letter with the receipt to the lady of the house.”

This man. This man.

“I would expect nothing less,” you grit through a smile.

“Hm,” he responds doubtfully. With one last pen flick, he moves to hover over your shoulder, placing the clipboard in your hands. He’s too close now; you have to fight the urge to elbow him in the side.

“You’ll need to sign here. It’s not a very legitimate signature; I would have preferred to have the Lady or Lord of house Armstrong here to sign. But if they trust you, then what can be done?”

You finish signing your name and eagerly hand the clipboard back to him, desperate to get some space between the two of you. He doesn’t move, examining your signature from over your shoulder.

He says your name aloud and it’s like you’ve never heard it voiced before. There’s something about how it sounds coming out of the mouth of a genius that is unique and equally terrifying.

“Yes, sir.” You turn around so that you can face him without having him breathing over your shoulder. “First of my name.” There’s a smirk on your face that he returns.

“We’re all royalty in our own eyes, aren’t we?” he muses, not really expecting an answer. You watch him tear off a perforated bit of the paper at the bottom and hand it to you. You take it and glance at the line of numbers that have been written on it.

“Is this the price?” you ask meekly. He gives you a sly smile.

“More than you make in a decade, yes?”

You couldn’t even be angry; he was right. Fortunately, the Armstrong family had sent you well prepared to pay it. The price looked much larger when it was written on paper.

Jindosh directs you back to the waiting room, pulling the handle that lowers the room back to the first floor. You don’t feel as dizzy this time around, but that might be attributed to how much you’re focusing on not showing weakness in front of him. As the room settles, he leads you out of it and into the room across from it. There’s a desk with paperwork that had barely been touched and a safe in the corner. He dials in the code, not even bothering to hide it from you despite all his talk of thievery.

You open the pouch and deal out the coin to him, counting it aloud to make sure that you don’t miss a single cent. He takes his own pouch from the safe and stores the coin away, closing the safe and laying the clipboard down on his desk. “Very good. Now, let’s go down to the loading area to make sure that your husband has finished with the heavy lifting.”

“He’s not my husband,” you say, though you’re not sure why you have to.

He doesn’t seem to notice or care, leading you to the elevator at the end of the glass foyer. Walking above the arc pylon makes the hairs on your neck stand up, but you quickly smoothen your façade so that he doesn’t notice your displeasure.

It occurs to you as you’re waiting with him in the elevator that you’re being very aware of your appearance around him. Instead of thinking about it too hard, you attribute it to your need to represent the Armstrong family and ignore all other possibilities.

As the elevator lowers, you can hear something that sounds … not good.

You hadn’t heard the sound of men dying before, but it was a sound that one recognizes the first time that they hear it. Screams like this would paralyze even the most experienced soldier.

“What in the void?!” Jindosh snarls, taking a step back from the elevator doors. He hits the override button just as the wooden panels separate and just before the bars open. This allows the two of you to see the entire scene at a safe distance.

For the most part, you had lived a very safe and sheltered life. You had never witnessed a war and you had never had to attend to anything worse than an accident with a kitchen knife.

The amount of blood that you saw before you set your stomach turning. Before you, in the middle of the loading area, was a dismembered clockwork. Its wooden attributes were missing and it looked as though it had been in the process of being dismantled and packaged when whatever happened had happened. Really, though, it was hard to tell what was what when everything was covered in visceral entrails and body parts.

The clockwork itself laid in several different parts on the floor, smoking and sizzling in the puddles of blood. The sounds of screams had stopped right as the elevator had opened up, but there were still bodies lying everywhere, writhing or convulsing.

One of those bodies belonged to Henry.

He was alive, from what you could tell, but just barely. His arm was missing, his stomach slashed open. He was whimpering.

You fling yourself at the metal bars, prying them open with your bare hands. Jindosh voices his disdain from behind you, but you aren’t really listening. “Henry?!” You cry out, trying to run to him without slipping on the mess. “What happened? Henry!”

You fall to his side, taking his head in your hands. His eyes look beyond you, somewhere far away, but he is still alive. “We were taking it apart,” he mumbles, “we were gonna package it up—they said it wouldn’t wake— they said it wouldn’t attack us unless something triggered it.”

The sound of Kirin’s footsteps approach from behind you. He says nothing.

“Henry, how did this happen?” you wipe away the blood from his mouth, but more keeps coming as he tries to relay information to you.

“It wasn’t supposed to come alive! It—they said—they said it could be taken apart safely—I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to take off the headpiece first—they didn’t tell me—they didn’t see me do it until it was too—late.”

You feel a lump well up in your throat as you watch him dying in your arms. “It’s okay, it wasn’t your fault. I’ll take care of this, don’t you worry.” You squeeze his arm one last time, watching as the light in his eyes fades away right in front of you.

“If you take off the headpiece, it relies only on audio feedback.” Jindosh says. His voice doesn’t sound too terribly invested in the scene before him. “They probably did tell him not to take it off first and he didn’t pay any attention. It wouldn’t be the first time. This is by far the worst case scenario, though, I must say. What a mess.”

You lay Henry’s head down on the wet floor, your hand trembling, covered in blood all the way up to your elbows. “This—this wasn’t supposed to happen.” You murmur, “No one was supposed to die—I wasn’t supposed to let him die.”

“Well, he’s dead. As are at least eight of my own employees. Not to mention the destroyed Clockwork! I’m sure I don’t have to remind you how much it costs, considering you just handed the coin to me just a moment ago—.”

You whirl around; your hand stings as it connects with his cheek. “How dare you? How dare you? You insufferable piece of shit.” Tears sting at your eyes. You hadn’t even known Henry for very long but he didn’t deserve to die like that, terrified and thinking that it was all his fault. Even if it was!

Jindosh’s hand touches his face, his eyes boring into you so hard that by the time you realize what you’ve done, he’s already made up his mind about what to do next.

“So that’s eight dead men and one destroyed clockwork. I’d say that calls for some ample reimbursement, wouldn’t you?” His hand leaves his face and you blanch at the mark your palm had left on his skin. “I’ll be sending a letter to the Lord and Lady of house Armstrong denying their request for a Clockwork, after all. And let’s see,” he points out the bodies in the room, pretending to recount them. “Exactly eight dead employees of mine? I think you, at the very least, should be compensation enough. A servant that can read and write is worth at least ten that can’t even give decent instructions, wouldn’t you say? I’ll write the Armstrongs asking for your transfer in the morning. In the meantime, I hope you wouldn’t mind cleaning up this mess? It’s beginning to stain the hardwood.”

“Transfer?” you echo, “Mr. Jindosh, I’m so sorry—I shouldn’t have ever raised a hand to you—I can’t tell you how horrible I feel—,”

“Oh, you’ll have plenty of time to do that while you work here for me. I hope you won’t mind my mentioning your assault in the letter. That might help them send your paperwork faster.”

You take a step forward and feel your shoes beginning to soak up the blood. You look down and feel yourself grow light-headed. Surely this isn’t happening; you never would have struck Kirin Jindosh in your right mind. This must all be some sort of hallucination. Just thirty minutes ago you were sitting in his waiting room!

“This—it’s all a misunderstanding—I can’t—you can’t—,”

He turns his back to you, walking toward the elevator. “You’ll work here until you can pay off the clockwork your incompetent cohort destroyed. How long did we say it would take, earlier? A decade?” he spits the last word at you as the wooden panels of the elevator close before him and he disappears.

You hear his voice over the intercoms calling for more maids to meet you as well as some guardsmen to help clear out the debris. All you can do is stand there, soaked up to your ankles in someone else’s blood, watching as they drag Henry’s body out of sight. The house keepers try to speak to you, snapping their fingers in front of your face and guiding you to a seat. They ask if you’re alright, but they don’t ask what happened. They have probably seen something like this a thousand times.

If you hadn’t hit him, you would just be another number. You’d still get to go home.

What a fool you’d been.


	2. Chapter Two

The servant quarters for Jindosh’s staff was nonexistent. Between the day that Henry had died and the day that your transfer letters were approved and filed, you would have to find a home for yourself. It was not provided. You would have to acquire living quarters elsewhere and ride the carriage every day to work.

You didn’t bring any of your own money with you when you had left for Jindosh’s mansion. Your coin purse had been used to store the Armstrong’s money in it and you hadn’t felt right mixing it with your own. There wouldn’t be enough time for the Armstrongs to send you your own belongings before you were due to go into work for Jindosh, so that left you with only two options:

Go homeless and sleep on the streets until your belongings eventually arrived, or spend the remaining money from the clockwork purchase.

There was something morally unjust about spending the Armstrong’s money without their permission; you knew that they would eventually ask for it back and hopefully you’d have your own coin to repay them, but that didn’t make it feel any less like stealing.

The worst part about it all is that you could practically hear that condescending voice in your head telling you, “I do hope you don’t intend to steal the rest of the money.”

There were apartments close to the mansion infested with bloodflies. This made their neighboring buildings cheap. You wouldn’t even have to use all of the money to afford the living space and you’d only need a portion of it to buy food and necessities. Regardless, it made you furious.

Handing over the money to the landlord was hard enough, but having to spend the first night in your new quarters was enough to keep you up with murderous intent for the Grand Inventor.

The walls were spotted with water damage and rot, the floors were rough and splintered. The door to your living area didn’t lock and the kitchen area had two cabinets with broken shelves. On top of all this, the smell of the neighboring bloodfly apartment was sickening.

On the brighter side, the apartment was heated and the neighbors on your other side were also employees of Jindosh. They had helped you move a wardrobe in front of a particularly huge water stain in the front room.

The room was paid for and you were under a roof, that’s really all you could ask for.

The shock hadn’t really worn off yet, even after a few days. Part of you thought that the Armstrongs might deny his request for transfer, but that seemed less and less likely with every passing day.

You would sit on the side of your bed, holding the letter from Lord Armstrong that had given you permission to purchase the clockwork. Jindosh had never asked for it, so you had kept it. The letter went on and on assuring Mr. Kirin Jindosh that you were a very trustworthy and suitable representative for the Armstrong family and that they trusted you with this responsibility. It made you sick with guilt.

Never had you ever laid a hand on someone, let alone a superior. You had never so much as raised your voice to someone who had power over you, it wasn’t wise.

But at night, when you can still hear Henry’s pitiful whimpers, you wished you had hit him harder. You remembered the squeeze on your shoulder when he left you alone with Jindosh.

You were supposed to look out for one another. How could you have known?

And that bastard. Talking about prices and reimbursements while Henry had choked to death beneath him was just too repulsive. All your life you’d dealt with nobility and never before had you ever had to encounter such a blatant disregard for human life, even that of a servant. Most nobles would have been repulsed by the scene, at the very least. Maybe some would have even shown a bit of remorse. But Jindosh didn’t even break stride.

“He’s always been like that,” says one of your neighbors, “Servants die every year, sometimes once a month. Either he’s used to it by now or he’s never felt a human emotion in his life. Who’s to say?”

They ask you why you can’t just return to your old place of residence, collect your things, and run for it. Why do you have to work for Jindosh? Why don’t you just leave Karnaca?

The answer was complicated. Too much pride was involved. You couldn’t have faced the Armstrongs after what you had done; there was no way that you could possibly lay a foot on their estate after you had disrespected them. Also, you couldn’t simply flee Karnaca—where would you go? You were not the sort of person to run away from problems, anyway. Staying and working for Jindosh was the only true way to repair the damage you had dealt to the Armstrong family.

Maybe one day you could return to your old way of life, but for now, you had to pay for your actions.

*

The first three weeks seemed to fly by.

There wasn’t any real difference between Jindosh’s home and any other mansion—except, of course, for the moving rooms and his obnoxious voice over the intercom system every twenty minutes, barking some sort of sarcastic remark.

Within the first week, you had been taught how all the rooms worked and which rooms were strictly off limits. To your surprise—that was almost all of them. Jindosh’s bedroom was a private part of the house that he refused to let anyone clean as well as his photography studio, lab, and office. You were perfectly alright with this; it meant that you didn’t have to see him in person hardly at all.

When you did see him, it was on the rare occasion that he ate a meal.

You hadn’t had the misfortune of actually serving him the meal yet; mostly, you helped with dishes and with setting and unsetting the table. Sometimes you could glimpse him through the doorway, but you always made it a point to hastily turn heel and walk the other way.

Jindosh didn’t eat much; he only took a kettle of tea with a few biscuits for most of his meals. This made the cook irritated, but you were perfectly content with not having to interact with the inventor.

In fact, you were beginning to think he’d forgotten he had hired you. The first few days, you had dreaded the moment he would call you into his office or make you clean up some other poor person’s remains. Instead, you had managed to avoid him altogether. The house was rather large, after all, and the other maids were quite helpful in informing you about his daily routines and rounds about his home.

His intercom system was the only time you heard him speak at all; usually, he was reprimanding whoever was whistling or walking too loudly. Evidently, the house was acutely sensitive to sound and motion. This made walking around rather eerie—wondering whether or not he could hear you breathing or speaking.

Overall, you were beginning to grow comfortable working in the mansion. As long as you could avoid Kirin Jindosh for ten or so years, then you’d be fine. It wasn’t the same as working for the Armstrong family, but you couldn’t dwell on that. The pay was poor, yes, but at least the cost for rent was horrible.

You had even managed to repay the Armstrong’s for the money you had used to by the apartment. They hadn’t responded to your letter, yet, which worried you. This thought bothered you routinely throughout the day, especially now, as you prepare a bucket of warm water and a mop.

“Why the long face?” asked one of the other maids, folding a set of towels, “Mopping is the easiest of the chores; I’d be happy to do it if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s fine,” you smile, putting on a brave face, “I’m just tired, is all. Ready to finish the shift, I suppose.”

“I get it,” she sets the towels in a stack and lifts them into her arms with talented ease, “Well, hey, don’t forget to unplug the whale oil if you’re mopping the upper foyer, alright? Jindosh is always going on about that.”

You understood conductivity relatively well, for your profession. “Yes, I know. Thank you, I appreciate everyone looking out for me.”

Before she leaves the room, she gives you a bittersweet smile, “We lose too many of our own here. It’s just safer to watch each other’s backs.”

Lifting the bucket off the ground with a heave, you balance the mop over your shoulder and saunter your way over to the elevator. You’d learned the hard way the elevators were the best way to get around the house without getting absolutely lost.

The last thing you had to do today was mop the foyer in front of Jindosh’s laboratory. The tricky part was pulling the lever, scaling down the floor panels, unhooking the whale oil, and traversing back up without getting caught. It had taken you about thirty minutes to get up the nerve to do it on your first try. Now, you were a little better at getting down, but getting back up was still so dangerous that your hands shook when you made it back up. Usually, mopping took you about fifteen minutes if you were quick and twenty minutes if it was the end of the day—like it was now—and you were exhausted.

After the wall of light was deactivated and you had safely made your way back out of the treacherous inter-workings over the foyer, you set to work.

Back and forth, back and forth, getting the corners of the room. This wasn’t any different than the Armstrong’s ballroom that you would have to mop by yourself. Except, perhaps, it was much larger and a little uglier—in your opinion.

By the time you were halfway through, you were desperately missing your bed. All of your belongings had finally made it back to you, though none of them seemed to hold any familiarity when they weren’t surrounded by the walls of your old bedroom, in the servant’s quarters of the Armstrong estate. It hadn’t been a very big room and you had shared a bathroom with all the other maids, but it had been home for you.

Ah, there you go again, thinking about something that shouldn’t matter anymore. It’s in the past, you tell yourself, forcing your mind to focus on the task at hand. Despite your best efforts, though, you keep anxiously thinking about what they must be saying about you over dinner and through letters to Tyvia. If there was anything that bothered you most about this entire situation, it was how you were perceived by the people who you respected.

The sound of a door opening caught you completely off guard. The only entrance into this foyer was the laboratory door, but Jindosh never came through here—

But there he was, leaning against the doorway, taking long draws from his ceramic appendage. You weren’t sure what to do, really. You still had the mop in you hands, your grasp so tight that you felt splinters digging into your palms. He said nothing to you and you were too intimidated to start a conversation, so you silently went back to mopping, your heart beating hard in your chest.

You hadn’t been alone with him since you had struck him.

“Well this is rather rude of you,” he says, “Usually servants greet their masters when they see them. Didn’t you used to do that at your former place of employment?”

Oh, he most certainly had not forgotten you.

“Forgive me,” you stop what your doing and face him, “Good evening, sir.”

“That’s better,” he muses, looking dissatisfied, “But that’s not quite as elegant as you did when we first met.”

Your jaw tightens as you realize what he’s saying. Biting your tongue, you bow yourself into a formal curtsey.

“Ah, yes, there it is.” He smiles, but it’s full of egotism, “Tell me, (y/n), how are you liking it here, thus far?”

Was this a trick question? You thought carefully before answering him, “I’m very appreciative of the opportunity to work for you, sir.”

“Hm,” he pushes himself off of the door frame and walks across the freshly cleaned floor so that he’s making slow circles around you. “That’s not what I asked, was it?”

He moves like a shark in the water, surrounding you, trapping you under his gaze. It’s oddly hypnotic, in a horrible way. You tell yourself to satisfy him for the time being, feed into his pride and play along until you can go home.

“I’m enjoying my time here, sir.”

“Oh, good, I’m glad to hear that,” he stops behind you and you can just feel his eyes upon you, “I’d be disappointed if you weren’t at least a little intrigued by being here every day. Some consider it a great honor to even set foot in this house, you know.”

“I know, sir. I’ve heard the stories.”

This catches his attention and he circles back around so that he can look at your face, “Is that so? Is that why you volunteered to come here on behalf of your former house?”

You hesitate on whether or not you should bother telling him, but decide there’s nothing to lose or gain from it, “No, sir, they sent me on their own accord.”

“Ah, so you were a highly valued servant, is that it? What special qualities did you have that set you apart, I wonder?”

“You said it yourself, sir, I can read and write.”

“Yes, yes, but that’s not the only thing, surely.”

His interest strikes you as a little odd. You couldn’t tell if he was still trying to interrogate you or if he was genuinely curious at this point. There was a spark behind his eyes that appeared to be earnest interest.

“I went to school for about three years,” you admit cautiously, “I studied law; almost got my degree, too.”

His face completely changes, almost like a flick of a switch. The atmosphere around him becomes much more comfortable to stand in. “How curious,” he deliberates, “And who paid for your education?”

“I did, sir. I worked between my classes.”

“And why did you leave?”

“I had to,” you look away, “I couldn’t afford it, even with the job.”

Jindosh is quiet for a minute, but just as quickly as the brief episode of civility had come, it left again and he was back to being the shark in the water. “Tragic. I suppose one can’t expect every person to work as hard as the next. Maybe you can return to your studies after your ten years has passed here?”

You feel that familiar Jindosh-oriented anger rising in you again. I did work hard, you pompous bastard.

“Perhaps,” you say instead, forcing a smile on your face. Jindosh takes another draw from his pipe and lets it blow into your direction. You fight back a cough as he smiles.

“You didn’t think I’d forget about you, did you?” he asks suddenly, his voice a little different than before. You feel your heartrate pick up again with anxiety.

“Forget—?” It takes you a second to comprehend what he’s referring to. The deal. “N-no sir. Of course not. I completely agree with the terms you have set.”

“Are you sure?” he challenges, stepping closer to you. Oh how you regret showing him your distaste for a lack of personal space on that first day. He’s closer than an arm’s reach now. “It’s such a long time and I’m not known for being a amicable employer. You might grow to hate me.”

You’re surprised by how hard it is to stop yourself from saying, I already hate you, you arrogant prick.

Instead, you muster up some hidden courage from the center of your self-esteem and say, “Hating you would not be very professional. Now if you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to distract you from your work any longer.”

Without hesitation, you gather up the mop bucket and give him one final curtsey, saying, “Good afternoon, Mr. Jindosh.”

Before you retreat, you catch a glimpse of his face, expecting to see another smug smile or smirk. Instead, he’s just … looking. Just watching as you move. There’s even a bit of surprise in the way he’s staring, almost as if he’s calculating something.

Quickly, you make your way down the carpeted staircase and back towards the elevator. You feel vastly different now that you’ve spoken to Jindosh, not in a good or a bad way. What you really feel is exhaustion and stress gnawing at you as you drop the bucket and mop into the storage closet and remove your apron.

There was a nagging feeling in the back of your head that kept saying things would change now that Jindosh had acknowledged your presence. Every time you spoke to him, the two of you were alone—which seemed to make matters worse, typically.

Holding your temper had never been hard for you, in the past. In fact, some people had said you were absolutely agreeable and tolerant! It was just him with his superior intellect and overdramatic egotism that pushed every single one of your buttons.

Still though, you hated to admit, he was appealing in some ways. While being under his gaze was unsettling, it also made you feel incomprehensibly important. That fact that this man who had given the empire technologies that would last decades and had surpassed the great Anton Sokolov had taken even the worst kind of interest in you was … thrilling? Is a way?

That thought stopped you in your tracks as you were leaving the mansion, boarding the carriage. Almost immediately, you recoiled from any notion that you enjoyed your predicament in the slightest. Jindosh was the worst sort of human being— lacking all compassion and obsessed with himself. You couldn’t let yourself fall for the same spell as every noble in this city was under, idolizing Kirin Jindosh as the Grand Inventor and not seeing his flaws.

But …

You sigh as you enter your apartment, collapsing onto your mattress. There had hardly been any one who could engage intellectually with you since law school. You’d grown used to being the silent maid who only spoke when spoken to and delivered pastries and tea without participating in the party conversation. Up until today, it really hadn’t occurred to you or even bothered you that you had had to dumb yourself down in order to gain the trust of your employers.

You couldn’t recall the last time an employer had asked you as many personal questions as Jindosh had in ten minutes. Even if he didn’t care to commit them to memory, he had seemed genuinely engaged in the conversation. How strange.

None of this matters, though. After all, this was still a heartless man who would sooner turn you into a lab project than spend a day not talking about himself.

There was some comfort in the fact that you didn’t have to avoid him anymore. There was no doubt that he would still pursue you every now and again to torment you, but he didn’t have the time to do that every single day. You found yourself resting easy knowing that this wasn’t the worse case scenario.

You could survive this.


	3. Chapter Three

Jindosh had made it a point to ask for you specifically for a variety of frivolous things all month. One morning you arrived to work and found that he had requested you to clean the silverware that morning. His note in your stationed locker had said “I’m having important guests over tonight. If they should ask for any specific piece of silverware in my vast collection, I want that piece to be sparkling like the day it was made.”

It had taken you five hours.

Then, a week later, you were serving him his dinner—he had requested you, of course—and he spilled his glass of wine right onto your shoes. Spilled is the wrong word to use, perhaps. He had poured it.

“Oh, how unfortunate,” he had mused, “I must be a little drunk. Clean this up, will you?”

And this went on for several weeks. He had work to do, of course, so it wasn’t constant or even really frequent. He delighted in tormenting you this way, knowing you couldn’t retaliate. You assumed that he was doing this because you had struck him once for his behavior and he knew you’d never do it again because of the consequences. It was like he was testing your limits.

Today, in particular, proved to be very testing.

One morning a couple of noble men had arrived to preview a clockwork and had been positively outraged at the length of their wait. Jindosh had given you the singular task of attending to guests all day without help from any of the other staff members. This was just another one of his teasing punishments. However, these two noblemen in particular were vile. One of them had demanded refreshments and fine wines while the other insisted that you hadn’t informed Jindosh of their arrival at all. Obeying the first, you had brought in a tray of Tyvian wine and De Lion brandy. The other servants looked upon you with pity, but were forbade to help you; Jindosh’s orders.

Part of you wondered if he had known these two men would be so repulsive.

*After two or three glasses of brandy, the men had transitioned from brisk and brittle to crude and surly. You were bringing in a plate of peaches and pears when you felt a pair of hands grab ahold of your waist and pull you into a lap. The tray clattered to the ground and the fruits rolled about the waiting room.

The man who had grabbed you made sure to tighten his grasp on your hips so that you couldn’t move. “Listen,” he began. His breath smells too strong, “If you’re not getting Jindosh’s attention, then you can have ours, yeah?”

Your stomach churned and you made an effort to stand up. “Sir, I’m very sorry, but that’s not what I’m here for—,”

“What do you mean that’s not what you’re here for?” the other man grunts, gripping your cheeks between his grasp and squeezing so hard you couldn’t speak “You’ve kept us waiting for hours. Your insolence needs reprimanding, wouldn’t you say?”

The hands on your hips move upward, closer to your breasts. Your own hands are shaking so hard, tightly wound around the wrist holding your face so harshly. “Please—,” you manage to whimper.

The hand on your face releases just as the other swings, slapping you so hard that your head spins. “I hate the ones that put up a fight. It’s such a waste of a pretty face.”

“Don’t worry,” says the man beneath you, “Maybe by the time we get you where we want you, Jindosh will join in too?” *

“Unlikely,” came his voice. You hadn’t even felt the room shift, but here you were, on the upper level.

You felt the hands upon you release.You quickly scrambled away from the two of them and towards the inventor who stood stiffly in front of the assessment chamber balcony. He didn’t say a word to you as your put yourself behind him, your body shaking and your throat stinging with the need to cry out. The two noblemen drunkenly attempted to stand and present themselves to Jindosh.

“Mr. Kirin Jindosh,” the one who had struck you says, “My apologies. We’ve had a little too much to drink, it would seem.”

“Yes, yes,” says the other, “She may have poured us one too many glasses.” The two of them chuckle, but Jindosh’s face stays calm and collected.

“I see,” he says. “Well, if the two of you are quite ready, I’d be happy to show you the clockwork you’ve asked for.”

They approach the inventor who casually stands between you and them. “This way,” says Jindosh, guiding them to the balcony railings. “You can see it has been activated.”

The noblemen began to walk farther down the balcony in order to get a better glimpse, having already forgotten your presence.

But Jindosh hadn’t.

He turns to you, still as reserved as always, and says, “You’re relieved of your post for today; these will be the last guests I’ll be taking for the afternoon. Instead, I want you to go to the pantries and bring me a tray of biscuits and tea to my room in an hour. That’ll be all.”

And then he turned his back to you and joined the noblemen on the balcony.

Your legs felt like they would collapse beneath you as you re-entered the waiting room. Your nimble fingers pulled the lever and you stood and watched Jindosh’s slender form as it disappeared from your sights. He had still been standing between your exit and the noblemen. You wondered if you should be reading into that.

The other servants gave you wary looks as you entered the pantries; you assumed you looked like a mess. One of the cooks asked you if you were alright, but you knew you couldn’t tell them. It was embarrassing and horrifying. You can’t believe Jindosh had seen you like that—in the lap of some stranger while another held you in place. Helpless.

But, also, you can’t believe his timing.

The men had only been waiting for an hour.

His usual guests were left waiting for at least three.

Something else prodded at your thoughts; Jindosh didn’t have his typical clip board. You never saw him arrive to a business meeting without it. In fact, he had arrived wearing something far less formal than his usual strapping attire; he’d been wearing a white undershirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His trousers were connected to visible suspenders.

It wasn’t until after you’d put the biscuits in the oven and set the kettle boiling that it hit you—he’d been listening through the sound systems.

Something …

Something strange fills your chest. You knew Jindosh didn’t particularly care for you; he didn’t care for any of his servants. And if you had perhaps been just any other maid, maybe he wouldn’t have stepped in when he had. Yet, he had done just that. There hadn’t been anything chivalrous about his actions—it wasn’t as though he had come in angrily and thrown the nobles off of you. But he had intervened and prevented whatever would have happened.

And he’d done that … intentionally. With a purpose.

He’d done it for you.

You’re startled so hard by this thought that your hand slips and you drop a cup on the kitchen’s wooden floor. It shatters into a hundred tiny shards and scatters across the room. “Damn it,” you curse under your breath, “Get a hold of yourself.”

As you’re bending down to collect the pieces, you notice another person enter the room. It’s one of the guardswomen—the one from the first day you’d arrived with Henry. She’s giving you a strange look and has said nothing. You assume that she’s here for something to snack on while she’s on duty and continue picking up the glass.

You’re surprised to see her hands in front of you, helping gather the broken bits into her gloved palm.

“Ah, you don’t have to do that,” you give her a shaky smile. “It was my fault.”

“I saw you,” she says, simply, “With those men. I was standing guard just outside.”

You freeze, staring blankly as she continues to clean up the sharp glass. She continues, “I’m sorry I didn’t intervene. Jindosh had told me that I’d catch hell if I rattled some skulls. Don’t think he intended for it to go that far, but I couldn’t risk it. I need this job.”

Your brow furrows, “He told you not to help if something happened?”

“Not exactly,” she elaborates, “He told me that the guests might be real pieces of work. Told all the guard and most of the staff to let you handle them all. He didn’t say why, but we suspected it was because of what you did that day, in the loading dock.”

The feeling in your chest turns cold. Hastily, you break eye contact with her and finish picking up the pieces. “That was a mistake. I wish I’d never done that. Now I’m his play thing. I wish I can say I’m surprised he told you not to step in.” Whatever you’d been thinking prior to the guardswoman’s input had went up in flames. This was his fault. Something horrible almost happened to you and it was his fault. He didn’t think twice that he might have put you in danger. It was all a damn game to him. A power trip.

She stands up and pours her handful of cup shards into the nearby bin. “I heard he stepped in himself, right?”

You pause, refusing to glance up and meet her stare. “It was his fault in the first place, you said it yourself.”

“I’ve never heard of Jindosh intervening on behalf of a servant before. That’s why I’m talking to you about this. I’m telling you to watch yourself around him.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying he’s taking a liking to you. It’s not unusual for the grand inventor to be cruel to his servants, but from what I’ve heard, he’s not hurting you. He’s playing with you.”

“A liking to me? I could have been—!” you feel tears sting in your eyes, “I shouldn’t even be here! He’s not doing this because I’m someone special, he’s doing this to stroke his own ego.”

She’s quiet, watching you hoist yourself up.

“Look,” she begins, “If Jindosh hadn’t been interested in you on day one, you wouldn’t be standing here. He’s killed servants for less than a slap to the face. You must’ve made an impression on him or something. He’s obsessed with you.”

Her words have set you into a stupor. Kirin Jindosh was far from obsessed with you. He cared about his work, first and foremost. He didn’t have the time to be thinking about a lowly servant to the point of obsession. If anything, his interest in you stemmed directly from a need to stimulate his pride.

Or perhaps he was just evil and conniving; perhaps that was why he delighted in tormenting you.

Before you could retort to the guardswoman, you could hear the shrill whistle of the kettle boiling over and the smell of biscuits close to completion. “Thank you, for helping me clean up the mess.” You say tartly, avoiding the topic that had been at hand. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Jindosh has asked that I bring him his afternoon snack.”

She says nothing as you pour the tea into a new glass and carefully arrange the biscuits on the platter—perhaps paying a little too much attention to detail, for whatever reason.

“You’re taking those to his office?”

Your body is shaking less; you can carry the tray steadily. “Yes, why?”

“You’ll be the only servant in history to have been allowed that privilege. Not one soul has been up there since he bought this place.” 

There was nothing left to say to her. You couldn’t tell if she was sincerely trying to warn you or if she was taunting you into inappropriate thoughts. Either way, you weren’t sure what she was trying to gain out of any of this.

“Excuse me,” you bustle past her, careful not to tilt the platter. She watches you leave the kitchen and enter the elevator. There are four floor on the panel, the top two were typically restricted areas. You hesitantly press the “office” button.

The doors close and you feel yourself begin to rise with the elevator. The tea ripples with motion on the platter, reflecting your expression in warped ripples. You weren’t sure what she was trying to warn you about or why she found it necessary. You hated Jindosh with every fiber of your being. You were sure of that now, weren’t you?

… Weren’t you?

It was much harder to try and hate him when he had stepped between you and the noblemen. It was much harder to hate him when you realized how his constant torment was ultimately harmless. It was much harder to hate him when that one thought keeps circulating in your mind—if he hadn’t been interested in you from the start, he would have had you flogged on the spot for assaulting him.

What sort of interest, though?

You think back on the interactions you had had on that first day.

“Sir, it’s not … miniscule.” There’s a bit of spite in your voice and he definitely takes notice of it. “The Armstrongs are a respectable house in Karnaca, just as deserving as any other noble household.”

He stops walking and turns to face you fully. There’s a glint of something in his eyes that you don’t like at all, directing your gaze elsewhere as his falls upon you. 

That hadn’t been interest. That had been… ah, something else! Surely!

He says your name aloud and it’s like you’ve never heard it voiced before. There’s something about how it sounds coming out of the mouth of a genius that is unique and equally terrifying.

“Yes, sir.” You turn around so that you can face him without having him breathing over your shoulder. “First of my name.” There’s a smirk on your face that he returns.

The feeling had returned, twice as strong as before.

As the elevator rises, you feel a lump start to form in your throat.

The gentle heat of the tea does little to calm you as you arrive on the fourth flour. The room is small and piled with boxes and cabinets in the corners. It stands apart from the other areas of the house due to the evident fact that no one had been up here to clean before.

The room just outside of this one glowed warm with a copper-colored light. A golden balcony circles around a chandelier. Large electric circuit-boards line the high walls. It smells like oil and steel.

You step out onto the balcony, timidly looking down over the railing to what your recognized as the laboratory below. The floor is glass and can see what appears to be a mechanism beneath the surface. It made you feel like you were standing in a giant clock.

“Ah, there you are.”

Your head snaps up to see Jindosh sitting at his desk across the room. He’s glancing up at you, motioning with his hand for you to come closer. There’s a large piece of a clockwork on his table that he’s taking apart.

Cautiously, you do as you’re told, walking over to his desk.

“Do you know you’re the only servant who I’ve ever allowed in this room? Truth be told, I’ve just been so incredibly swamped with buyers today that I’ve not had any time to get real work done. And I fear that if I prolong eating any further I might whither up on the spot.”

There’s a small smirk on his face. He’s joking with you.

“Is it alright if I set this here?” You ask him, motioning to a clear spot on his desk.

“Yes, yes, it doesn’t matter.”

Skillfully, you set the tray onto the surface and carry his cup of tea closer to him. With swift hands, you make him a plate of two biscuits, leaving the plate with the rest of them to the side in case he wanted more later. You notice six empty, dirty cups of tea scattered about on his desk and smile softly, picking them up and balancing them on the tray.

“Enjoy your meal, Mr. Jindosh,” you say as you turn away, heading back to the elevator.

“Well, hold on,” you hear him say, “You’re the first maid that’s ever set foot in the laboratory of Kirin Jindosh and all you do is drop off some tea and biscuits?”

Of course it couldn’t be that easy. You dread what comes next. Will he spill tea on you? Ask you to remake the biscuits?

“Is something wrong, sir?” you reverse yourself so that you look him in the eye. You know he prefers it that way.

“Most certainly,” he says, taking a small sip from his cup, “You’re ridiculously underwhelmed. Did law school teach you that?”

You blink at him before you find yourself laughing a bit. “Ah, no sir. I’m not underwhelmed. It’s all very impressive.”

“You seemed to be in a hurry to leave, is all.” He glances at the biscuits but doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to eat. He might whither on the spot. Ha. That was a lie, too.

“Oh, yes, well,” you hesitate, but he’s already looking at you expectantly. Studying you. “I just thought you might have wanted to talk to me about what happened earlier and I …”

“You thought it would be better to just ignore it all, I see.” He swirls the tea around in the cup, glancing to the side as he contemplates this. With one fluid motion, he’s set down his tea and is standing, moving toward you with a stride. “I’m not angry with you, if that’s what you think. I don’t have anything to say about that at all, really.”

You stare at him blankly. “Nothing at all?”

He shakes his head and gives a feigned confused look, “Should I?”

Heat rises up your throat. “Y-you told the guards not to intervene if something were to happen to me!”

Your voice is a little louder than you anticipated it being. You’re angry.

Jindosh laughs a little, shaking his head, “I meant for them not to step in if a guest called you names or ruffled your feathers. It’s not my fault that they’re all too daft to realize the difference between badgering and bludgeoning.”

“Not your—not your fault!” you hear the tea cups rattling your trembling grasp. “I could have been hurt! Or worse!”

“No, no, you really couldn’t have been. I wasn’t too far away at any point in time. Most of my day was spent in the assessment chamber, anyway. I planned it out that way.” He regards himself briefly and looks as though he’s said a little too much.

You don’t take notice of it in the moment, though. Your face is red with anger. He looks you over and grins widely, a slow chuckle coming from his lips. “Ah, there it is.”

“There what is?” you say through gritted teeth.

“The face you make when I’ve pushed you a bit too far. I noticed it right away, when we first met. How rare it is to find a servant who doesn’t retreat into mindless stupor. It’s very interesting, you know.”

The red in your face is there for a different reason now.

“Are you telling me that you’ve been tormenting me for weeks … just to get a rise out of me?”

He claps his hands together three times, “Bravo! You’ve finally figured it out! It took you so long, I feared I’d been wrong about you all along.”

“Wrong about me how?” your voice is much softer now. He’s been looking at you so intensely this whole time. It’s starting to do something to you, as it always does.

“In thinking that you might actually not be a dithering idiot. Well, not entirely.”

You knew, now, that “not entirely” was said to get you to react. Instead of an outburst, you perked your lips to the side and gave him a no-nonsense kind of glare. “I’ll have you know, Mr. Jindosh, sir, that I’ve never been employed by someone like you before.”

“And I doubt you’ll ever be employed by someone like me again, my dear,” he laughs, completely oblivious to the way you look at him when he calls you that. He turns on his heel briskly and returns to his desk, pulling up his seat and adjusting the light above the clockwork piece.

“In any case, I don’t completely hate you. Consider yourself lucky. And from now on, you’ll bring my dinner to me here. Duke Luca Abele has put a bit of pressure on me to perfect the depth-perception clockwork so I’ll be desk-bound for the next few weeks. That means I won’t be seen at the supper table.”

You quietly watch him work for a moment, frozen in your spot. After a pause, he glances up at you, regarding you oddly. “That’ll be all, carry on.”

You take the hint, albeit slowly. With the tray of dirty cups in your hands, you turn to head back toward the elevator.

Before you go, though, you stop and turn back to him, words caught in your throat. This grabs his attention and he looks up at you one last time. “Mr. Jindosh, thank you for earlier.” you say, “Even if it was all your fault.”

You turn and leave, but not before you catch a hint of a smirk appearing on his face. He must enjoy bantering.

The ride down in the elevator seemed to take an eternity. Many thoughts were racing around in your head, most of which were less than appropriate. The smallest portion of your subconscious was chalking all of this up to Stockholm syndrome.

This … this growing affection toward the Grand Inventor needed to stop before it started. First he was detestable, then he was tolerable, and now? He was almost enjoyable. That was appalling! The man lacked empathy. You’d have to be mad to think that he actually cared about your well-being.

Images of Henry flicker behind your eyelids and you feel a since of shame. You had to keep reminding yourself who he really was. If the servants and guardsmen were already aware of what was happening to you, then you should be concerned, at the very least. And yet, there you just were, throwing teasing insults between the two of you. He’d looked at you like you’d never been looked at before. Maybe that was just the gaze of an inventor who focused on one thing at a time, but you felt like you were the center of his attention for just that moment.

Your heart skips and you’re scared, suddenly, of what that means.

As a servant for most of your life, you’d never been anyone’s center of attention.

But the man that you see, the man that presents himself to you is not the true Kirin Jindosh. He’s only playing with you for now, you tell yourself. Once you’ve outlived his enjoyment, he’ll toss you away. Or worse, forget about you.

Shaking these thoughts away, you return to the kitchen and start to wash the dishes.

Your heart is still fluttering; it’s making you think thoughts that are … inappropriate. Thoughts that would have repulsed you a month ago.

The way he looks at you. The way he talks about you. It’s all very appealing now, of course. Nevertheless, you had to keep reminding yourself of how much you hated him. You forced yourself to remember how he’d talked about Henry after he had died. You made yourself remember the anger you had felt when you struck him.

You would expel these new thoughts from your mind, no matter what it took. You couldn’t afford to compromise yourself by growing fond of Kirin Jindosh.

And to think, a month ago you wouldn’t have even thought that possible.


	4. Chapter Four

You finally had heard back from the Armstrongs. Their letter was sitting on your dresser; it’s vanilla colored paper seemed to be inviting, but you were filled with too much dread to even approach it. There you stood, dressed for work, your chin balancing on your hand as you stared down at the envelope. The Armstrong wax seal was so familiar to you; it had been two months since you’d carried one very similar to Jindosh mansion. Since then, things had changed.

A quick glance to the ticking clock on your bedside table let you know you would be running late if you deliberated any longer. You’d been on time every day since you had started and you weren’t about to break that record for fear of what that smug bastard might say.

So, instead of opening the letter, you leave it sitting where it was.

You’d get back to it after work.

The carriage ride to the mansion was as crisp and cold as every morning. Your stomach turned a little with nervous anxiety brought on by the presence of the heavy letter still sitting on your dresser. It was strange, but you comforted yourself a little knowing that things would soon return to normal once you arrived at the mansion.

At what point did the Armstrong estate become the dreaded foreign land while the clockwork mansion had become home?

You didn’t really have any co-workers who you would call your friends. You knew them all by name, but you didn’t seek out any sort of relationship with any of them. Likewise, they didn’t make an attempt to get to know you, besides maybe that one guardswoman who routinely eyed you as you went about your daily routines.

So, all in all, you spoke with Jindosh far more than you spoke with any of your fellow servants.

Some conversations between the two of you consisted of him lightly complaining about something you’d forgotten to do or done incorrectly as you served him his tea and biscuits. These complaints never came to fruition, as he never truly reprimanded you. The other portion of your conversations revolved around him talking endlessly about his latest project or his most recent discoveries. You never really understood what he was talking about, but you would nod and listen as you cleaned his office area around him. Sometimes, he asked you questions that you tried to answer in an interesting way. From what you could tell, he was genuinely interested in what you had to say. He seemed to rather … enjoy your company. Or something like that, at least. He called you to his office far more regularly than what was required and more often than not had nothing to ask of you other than trivial things.

You were beginning to suspect he … well, you couldn’t make assumptions. Especially not for Kirin.

As you approach the mansion, something catches your eye. Atop the white brick archway stood a woman clad in dark clothes. The closer you got, the more of them you noticed. There was another sitting on the steps up to the front door and another on top of the outer wall’s windowpanes, leaning against the cool brick. Their faces were ashen, their collars laced with flowers and thorns. They stared at you unabashedly as you climbed out of the carriage.

Eye contact was polite, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. They were being rude; they hadn’t said anything to you but were obviously looking right at you. It made you uneasy.

“Running late, aren’t you?” says the one sitting on the steps.

You pause, a little taken aback, and give her an angry glance, “Just on time, actually. May I ask who you are here to see?”

She glances up at you with dark, blood shot eyes, a smile curling on her face, “Who does everyone come to see at the clockwork mansion? None other than the Grand Inventor himself, of course.”

“Kirin?” you mutter, thinking on her words.

“That’s a little unprofessional of you,” says the one above you, standing on the windowpane, “Aren’t you a low born?”

“What are you saying, Drella? We’re all low-born,” says the one sitting on the steps.

“Yes, but we don’t serve a lord or lady,” says the third, gazing down from atop the arch way, “We serve our mistress, Delilah, and she treats us all as sisters.”

The name sends a chill running down your spine. You’d heard her name before and would prefer not to hear it again. They all seem to notice the way your skin prickled at hearing their mistress’s name, turning to you with smirks on their faces.

“Is … is your mistress here? To see Kir—to see Mr. Jindosh?” You ask as steadily as you can. The one sitting at your feet gives a flickering laugh.

“We’re here with Breanna Ashworth,” says she, “Now enough with your pointless stammering, scurry off to scrub the floors, won’t you?”

It takes everything in you not to bristle on the spot, but you manage to hold your tongue and continue up the stairs without excusing yourself. Their airy laughter follows you through the front door of the mansion and doesn’t seem to stop even after the doors close.

Once inside, you hastily make your way to your personal locker near the pantries, all the while thinking about who was in the mansion and why.

Breanna Ashworth was a renowned name in Karnaca, almost as widely spoken as Kirin Jindosh. You knew she was the royal curator, in charge of the Conservatory. She was brilliant, not quite on par with Jindosh or at least not in the same way. You’d read a few of her articles that the Armstrongs had set aside to be thrown away. Nothing she said made a whole lot of sense or mattered to you as a law student, but it was clear that she was indisputably intelligent.

And now she was here to see Jindosh? Surely she didn’t want to purchase a clockwork; that was the only reason guests visited the mansion.

“Who does everyone come to see at the clockwork mansion? None other than the Grand Inventor himself, of course.”

She was here for Jindosh specifically. Why?

You arrive at the lockers to find a small note placed neatly atop your cleaning supplies. You can recognize the tidy handwriting right away. Jindosh had written, ‘I have a very important guest here today. I need you to bring us refreshments. We’re meeting in the smoking room. Be on your best behavior.’

You stare at his penmanship for moment longer before you neatly fold the note and tuck it into your pocket. Be on your best behavior. Oh, so that’s how he’s going to be today.

Something about his wording made you feel as though he wouldn’t be as playful this time around. This guest must be very important to him; he wants to impress her.

“Ah, there you are,” you hear the voice of the cook, “You’re supposed to bring a tray of refreshments to the smoking room for Ms. Ashworth and Mr. Jindosh, yes? I’ve prepared a meal to be set out on the foyer tables, but he made it clear that he wanted you to serve the drinks. They’ve been waiting on you, you should hurry now.”

It suddenly occurs to you that you were in fact late—even later now that you had talked to the women outside and idled by your locker. A sense of anxiety fills you as you think of Jindosh sitting on one of the velvet sofas, waiting impatiently. Be on your best behavior.

“Dammit,” you hastily pick up the tray he had set aside for you, the porcelain kettle sloshing around. “How long have they been sitting there?”

“About fifteen minutes, I believe,” he looked at you with a sense of pity. “Or twenty.”

Without another word, you turned and scurried toward the elevator, frantically pushing the button over and over again. It doesn’t make it go any faster, you knew, but it seemed to calm you a little. The cheerful ‘ding’ as it arrived made your heart skip; you almost pried the doors open in an attempt to fit yourself in. The guest area button was also pressed a hundred times, even after the elevator began to rise. Oh, he was going to be so upset.

Several guardsmen were at attention today in the marble parlor. Other servants bustled about, but you knew it wasn’t their job to serve the drinks—it was yours. They threw glances at you which confirmed your suspicions that Jindosh was angry; they looked positively horrified for you.

Aside from the Guardsmen and the servants, there were more women clad in black. They stood apart from Jindosh’s staff and seemed to physically repel anyone who came near them. They couldn’t have known who you were or the special torment Jindosh was putting you under, but they almost appeared to pick up on your uneasiness and gave you wry smiles as you quickly walked over to the smoking room.

The smell of perfumes and expensive tobacco was almost nauseating as you stepped foot into the dim room. The month of high cold was approaching fast which explained why the fireplace kindled warmly. The stuffy feeling of the room almost seemed to choke you as you entered. Jindosh was seated in a single armchair near the windows. He was wearing darker colored trousers than normal, his upper half clad in a dark red undershirt, a neutral colored asymmetric waistcoat hugging him nicely. Golden buttons caught the fire light, as well as his signature triangular pendant that was affixed firmly to the vest’s upper breast pocket. Around his throat hung a necktie quite similar to his favorite one, though this one looked like it was made of finer materials. He held his appendage-pipe to his lips, a cloud of smoke escaping as he finally noticed your presence. He looked handsome.

“Ah, you’ve finally decided to arrive. How kind of you,” he says, his face saying it all. He was quite angry.

You decide it’s best not to retort, opting instead to place the tray of tea onto the nearby table. You take this time to glance at the other person in the room, finding her sitting curtly on the love-seat across from Jindosh. She’s a beautiful woman, her hair wound up neatly with a silver pen. Her clothes, while not expensive, look well put-together. She’s wearing a dark olive suit with a low collar, her shoulders lined with golden roses. She’s looking at you, her snake earrings glinting ominously.

You look away from her and stare intently at the glasses of tea you’re pouring.

“I hope you’ll forgive me,” says Jindosh to Breanna, “The help these days are tediously incompetent.” 

He’s not really speaking to her, he’s speaking to you. You feel your face get hot and it isn’t because of the fireplace. You try not to think about how much time you’ve spent with him recently—you try not to think of how close you’d started to get to him. It hurts to do so.

Breanna waves a hand at him, “Jindosh, I’m not hear for pleasantries anyway. Whether or not your serving staff can do their jobs is of no matter to me. I’m here to discuss the progression of the clockwork design. She wants to know if they’ll be ready by the month of Earth.”

Jindosh visibly shifts in his seat, looking incredibly agitated at both Breanna’s scolding and your tardiness. “I promised the duke I’d have the final design done by the month of Songs, at the latest. She has nothing to worry about. I can send a prototype along with you today, if you think she’s in doubt.”

Breanna sighs, tipping her head back with mild exasperation. “That won’t be necessary, Kirin. Just as long as you yield results, you’ll get what was promised to you. There’s no need to—,”

“Alright, fine,” he dismisses her words with a wave of his own hand, “Then tell me this: how is the device running? The new lenses are working correctly, I assume?”

“With all the time you put into them, I should hope so,” says Breanna with a hint of smirk on her face. You hand her a cup of tea with honey. She doesn’t thank you or even look at you. “Watching you work is tiresome, Kirin. How you complete such meticulous work each day is astounding.”

He straightens up at the complement, as per usual. “Yes, well, it’s what I’m best at. Though I’m curious to see the device in action.”

At this point, Ashworth sends a cutting glance your way, “Are you sure it’s best to be discussing this in front of a … maid?”

Your jaw locks and shift nervously, Jindosh’s glass of tea in your hand.

He, too, looks at you. His eyes are steady and sharp, his face contorts slightly with irritation. “I suppose you’re right, it’s not wise to trust a servant with anything, these days. Shall we go somewhere private?”

Something in you wilts as he humiliates you.

Breanna stands, her form slender and angular. “I’d like that, yes.”

Jindosh’s glass of tea is still in your hands as the two of them stride past you. Breanna leaves the room first, but Jindosh hesitates, turning around to address you, “If you’re late again, you’ll find your stay extended by another ten years, do you understand?”

Swallowing, you say, “I understand, Mr. Jindosh.”

“And another thing,” he says, his eyes locked onto your own, “I expect to see you in my office at five. Don’t be late, if you know what’s good for you.”

And then he leaves.

You feel your legs shaking. That’s the first time he’s talked to you like that since the loading bay incident. You’d almost forgotten who he was to you, having instead chosen to look at him through rose colored glasses. Your throat burns; it’s been a long time since you’ve had an employer embarrass you in front of a guest like that or even reprimand you in such a way. An abrupt laugh bursts out of you; hadn’t you told yourself this would happen? That he’d show his true colors right when you were starting to …

Starting to what, exactly? It was true that you’d spent every afternoon in his office for the past few weeks, watching him work or even having small conversations. He’d have you arrange the books on his shelf or dust the area. You had begun to think that it was because he enjoyed your company; that he thought you were different than the others. He had lent you novels from his collection and had asked you questions about your time in law school. He was horribly egotistic and condescending, but he was also quite brilliant and fascinating. You could have listened to him talk and talk for hours without growing bored. At the very least, you respected him and found him to be interesting. And at most … you were afraid to admit that you’d thought of him outside of work. He’d made you feel important, like you separate from the rest. You’d opened yourself up to this man—the same man who you had hated months ago. You’d made a fool of yourself again.

He was responsible for Henry’s death, he forced you to leave your home, he was a horrible man with no sense of morality.

So why were you crying?

You feel hot tears pouring down your cheeks as you shakily pick up Breanna’s cup of tea and set it back onto the tray. You feel your body jerk as you hold back tiny whimpers, feeling embarrassed and angry and sad all at once. How could he have talked to you like that? You thought he admired you, too.

“I’m an idiot,” you murmur to yourself, wiping at your cheeks with the back of your sleeve, “Stop crying, you’re making it worse. You’re at work, act like it.” It was very unprofessional of you to cry here. You’d never expressed yourself like this, not even when you worked for the Armstrongs. It was a principle of yours.

Your eyes are scratchy, but you stopped the tears. By the looks you were getting from the rest of the staff as you stepped out of the smoking room, you knew that they could tell you’d been upset. One of the maids gently touches your shoulder and you can only send her a thankful smile before you make a quick exit back to the elevator.

This wasn’t even over yet, either. You’d have to go see him after Ashworth left.

In the time between, you made yourself work twice as hard. The floors of each level were mopped, including the foyer you’d been in. The Guardsmen looked at you awkwardly, but said nothing. After that, you waxed the furniture in the waiting room and the guest area, as well as the wooden handrails of the lobby staircase. You then set to work cleaning all the windows, though you only got done with the first floor by the time that Jindosh called for you over the sound system.

When you heard his airy voice echo through the halls, you had jolted with surprise. It was only a quarter past three. Dread filled your chest as you went to return your cleaning supplies to your locker, your mind swimming with ideas of what he had in store for you. As you’re on your way, you are surprised to see Breanna Ashworth and her group of black-clad women leaving through the front lobby. She was going back already?

Back at your locker, you put up your supplies and remove your apron. Carefully, you dig into your back pocket and pull out the note that Jindosh had left you this morning.

You stare at the folded piece of paper for a second before you tuck it back into its previous place.

Be on your best behavior.

You could get through this, you knew you could. If he wanted to fire you, so be it. There were other occupations, some less than inviting, but you could live without this.

The elevator ride to his office had never seemed to take this long before. Even the cheerful ding as you arrived on the top floor did nothing to soothe you. Steel yourself, you can handle anything he has to throw at you.

Stepping out of the elevator room, you round the corner and see him propped against his desk. He’s not working on anything, he’s not preoccupied—he’s waiting on you.

All you can do for a moment is stand and stare at him, about forty feet between you and the inventor. Though your feet feel heavy, you know that he’ll eventually snap at you if you don’t approach. So, you take a slow pace toward him, your head held high, your shoulders steady. He cannot hurt you. He cannot hurt you.

He could if he wanted to.

As you stop yourself about five feet in front of him, he says nothing to you. He looks you up and down, slowly, several times. His arms are crossed, but you see his index finger on his good hand tap rhythmically against his arm. He’s thinking.

He says your name like it’s a question, then lets out a long sigh. “Why do you think I decided to hire you instead of killing you on the spot?”

The question falls flat and heavy on your shoulders. You take a brief pause to weigh your answer.

“Because you were being merciful.”

“No,” he retorts angrily, “That is not why.”

You have nothing to say to him. You’re at a loss for words, wondering if there even was a correct answer. You shake your head to notify him that you have no clue.

He lets out an exasperated grunt, setting his face into his hands, massaging the bridge of his nose. “You know the answer; we’ve talked about it. I hired you because you were challenging. You were angry and defiant. Most of all, you hated me. I could tell almost instantly.”

You can only stare at him blankly as he talks.

“Don’t get carried away,” he laughs roughly, “Nearly everyone despises me, you’re not the first to do it. But you are the first person in a long time who I met and thought to myself ‘I don’t want them to’.” He’s quiet, suddenly, lost in a memory from a long time ago that you cannot see.

He looks back you, something new in his eyes. “I have to keep you around—for as long as it takes. I’m not sure what I want from you, exactly, but I’m not about to let you walk away. Do you know what that means?”

You’re at a loss for words, merely shaking your head weakly.

He closes the distance between the two of you with one elegant stride, his hand coming up to tip your chin so that you’re forced to look him in the eyes. “That means you can’t behave in such a way that I might have to fire you.”

The proximity has your head spinning. He’s never been so close to you before. You can smell his cologne, the hint of whale oil on his skin. Why is your heart beating so hard; why does he have to look at you like that? Your breath is shallow and you’re starting to feel his body heat seeping into you. Your back is against the railing—there’s nowhere for you to go. And you …

You don’t want to go.

Realization hits you so hard that you almost gasp. The reason why you care about his opinion. The reason why his reprimands hurt so bad. The reason why you enjoy his company.

And, unfortunately, it hits him as well.

His eyes widen as he observes the blush on your cheeks, the glassy look in your eyes. His mouth opens for a moment, as if to say something, but he comes up short. His gaze flickers down to your lips which have parted just above his fingertips.

“Well I’ll be damned,” he breathes, “I don’t believe it.”

You snap out of it as soon as he speaks, ripping yourself away from him and stumbling back toward the elevator a few steps. Your gaze is cast toward the ground; you couldn’t possibly meet his. A thousand things are rushing through you, mostly embarrassment and regret.

He’s quiet, observing you wordlessly. Then, very softly, he says, “I didn’t hypothesize this to be an outcome at all. How curious.”

You stammer, “I—I don’t … it’s not what you’re thinking. I’m just … I’m just confused or tired or … it’s not like that.”

“It’s not?” he muses, a smile in his voice. “I must say, it’s been a while since I’ve had someone look at me like that. Though can I really blame you?”

You feel a lump form in your throat.

His chuckles die off and he says, “Did I accomplish my goal already? Have I changed your mind about me?”

You retort, venom in your voice, “Not at all.”

“You certainly could have fooled me, my dear.”

You’re only half aware of his footsteps approaching you. Your eyes are cast to the floor, your head angled so that you cannot see him. “Look at me,” he orders.

You refuse. “I’ve not changed my mind,” you reiterate, “I hate you.”

A hand touches your cheek, warm and large and calloused from days and days of tinkering. You feel your breath catch in your throat. “I don’t think that’s true anymore than you do.” Once again, he guides your face up to level with his own.

You have your eyes closed tightly. You cannot look at him. If you do, you’ll lose yourself again. Yet, though you cannot see him, the feeling of his hand against your cheek seems to have the same affect.

Timidly, you murmur, “Can I please be dismissed?”

When he doesn’t answer, you take a chance and open your eyes, looking up at his face. He’s not smirking at you or staring wickedly. In fact, his face is calm and observing, as if he’s studying you.

He does not dismiss you. “Now that I’ve completed my original goal, I believe I’ve found a new point of interest. Don’t worry, you’re still needed.”

Your face must be pitifully red. You’re so ashamed and flustered. You wanted more than anything to run out of the room, but you knew he wouldn’t appreciate the rudeness. 

“You may be dismissed, but I’ve a new request for you from now on. I would like you to start working the night shifts here. Don’t worry, I hardly ever sleep so I’ll make excellent company. I’m also granting you permission to enter the private areas of the house, such as the photography room, the laboratory, and my bedroom. That’ll be all for now; I’ll see you tomorrow at dusk.”

His hand leaves your face, the warmth dissipating almost instantly. You stand limply where he had held in place, your mind racing.

He heads toward the elevator, likely going down to the laboratory. Before he rounds the corner to go into the elevator room, he calls to you over his shoulder-

“Oh, and don’t be late.”


	5. Chapter Five

You woke up the following morning, feeling odd that you didn’t have to go into work. You thought about cooking or reading, or perhaps you could go grocery shopping while you waited for your laundry to dry. But instead, you found yourself sitting in your living area, curled up in the armchair, staring at the opened Armstrong letter in front of you.

It had been … scathing.

(Y/N),

In regards to the letter you sent two months ago, we have deliberated and spent a good deal of time thinking about what we wished to say to you.

It is true that while you served us, you did your job excellently and without any qualms. Your dedication to the family name brought us great pride; we thought of you as a member of our family. Henry, too, of course.

But after we were notified of your behavior toward Mr. Jindosh the day that we sent you to complete a business deal, we were appalled and beyond ashamed of your actions. Mr. Jindosh was too kind in his letter to us; it is astonishing that you were permitted to walk out of the mansion without a single bit of harm coming to you—and we are adamant in assuring you that if we had been there, you would not have escaped unpunished.

We were more than obliged to grant Mr. Jindosh’s wishes to have you transferred; really, we ought to be thanking him for his generosity. Not only did he forgive the Armstrong household for your transgressions, but he took your shame off of our hands within the same letter. We can only hope, now, that you are serving him to your best ability in an attempt to atone for your heinous behavior.

In regards to the money that you stole from us in order to pay for your current abode, we are deliberating on whether or not we should take action against you for your thievery. Though, we are hesitant given the simple fact that you had enough decency to repay us as soon as you could. Regardless, this only added insult to injury.As it stands, we can only say that we are devastated and equally infuriated that you betrayed us like this.

We trust that all of your belongings made it to your new place of residence.

Please do not attempt to contact us again in the future,

Armstrong

You had re-read it several times. The more you searched and scanned the pages, the more numb you became to the words on the page. Ha! You had thought that the Armstrongs would forgive you! You could only imagine how you would have felt if you had received this letter the day after the incident. You might’ve thrown yourself from the mansion’s balcony!

But now, things had changed.

You picked up the letter from the table and walked over to the kindling fireplace, squatting down so that you could feel the heat against your knees. You held the letter up to your face, reading it one last time before carefully tearing it in half, then in fourths, then to little bits. Without another second to waste, you tucked the pieces of ruined paper under the kindling, watching as they smoldered before your eyes.

It was as if a weight had been lifted off your shoulders.

The past was in the past; there was nothing left to gain from thinking about what could have been. You worked for Kirin Jindosh now, and you likely would until the end of your days, seeing as he was so oddly fond of you.

Part of you hoped that whole “ten year” contract was set in stone, but you knew that he likely intended to keep you around as long as he wanted to. Even if you lasted ten years, what were you supposed to do when your time was up? Wave him goodbye as you pranced freely out of the mansion? It wasn’t so easy. Kirin wanted you to pay him back for the clockwork, or at least, that was what his excuse was. The more you thought about it, the more you realized that you’d be his employee until he grew tired of you. It was as simple as that.

But this was the least of your concerns.

Kirin Jindosh knew you fancied him.

Hell, you hadn’t even known! If you had come to terms with it in privacy, perhaps you would have never told him at all. And the man didn’t even behave like you would have expected him to; the greatest fear you could have had was that he’d laugh at you and then go on and on about how he felt absolutely nothing for you at all. But he hadn’t even done that. He had … watched you. He had observed your facial expressions and behavior and even played along to a certain degree. You could close your eyes and still remember the warm touch of his hand on your cheek; he had done that on purpose just to get a reaction.

It made your chest flutter. Like a damned school girl!

In reality, the only person who knew the true nature of this relationship was Jindosh himself, and he was quite enigmatic about the entire ordeal.

Your true thoughts only revealed themselves when you were in his presence. The man was simply captivating. When he wasn’t around, you could curse him all you wanted and with ease—but when he was in the room, it took all your willpower not to try harder just to impress him.

To keep yourself from falling too far, you tried forcing yourself to remember how he had been on that first day; how he had blamed Henry for the accident, had talked about the costs rather than the lives that had been lost. You’d never felt as much rage as you’d felt when you struck him. He had been a monster.

And, arguably, he still was. It just normalized itself.

Worse than that, you … had forgiven him. It had happened gradually, you supposed. But here you were, thinking about him regularly and without nearly as much spite as you’d prefer.

It was hard to admit, but you did care for him. And yes, it was nerve racking to think you’d have to see him again after your encounter yesterday evening, but you could only hope he’d tease you a minimal amount. On top of that, you also felt … anticipation. The way he had played along did nothing at all to repel your feelings. His hands on your body had been entirely too much at the time, but now you wished you could go back and feel them again, just for a moment longer. If you closed your eyes, you could remember how close he had been, the surprise on his face once he’d come to the realization, the smell of whale oil and Tyvian cologne subtle enough to draw one closer.

You imagine what might have happened if you hadn’t recoiled or denied your feelings. Would he have gone even further? Kirin was a man who loved to experiment, after all. And … you wished that you had let him.

You snapped out of your stupor, realizing you’d been crouched in front of the fire for a bit longer than necessary. Your skin radiated heat. Pushing back your thoughts, you heaved yourself up and strode into your small kitchen to prepare your breakfast. 

You went into work that night feeling regret that you hadn’t slept during the day. The moon was in the sky, reflecting off of the clear waterfall that roared down the side of Jindosh’s cliff. The old observatory roof glistening brightly, looking far more beautiful at night than any time during the day.

Shortly after entering the mansion, you arrived at your locker to find four other servants waiting for you. Their names echoed faintly in the back of your mind, it was just whether or not you could attribute them to the right face. You decided to just not mention them.

“We heard Jindosh gave you access to the restricted areas of the mansion,” one of them asked, glancing from your eyes to her fiddling hands. “It’s strange, yea?”

Another servant said, “Look, we’re all going mad trying to figure this out. It’s probably smarter to ask you, right? So can you tell us?”

You could only respond, flatly, “Tell you what?”

They all sighed, caught between being on the edge of their seats and ready to let it go. “You and the master of the house—are you sleepin’ together or somethin’? Or is it more like he’s makin’ you do whatever he pleases?”

You feel your face drain of color, then quickly regain it as embarrassment replaces horror. “No, no, no! We aren’t lovers!”

“But you are beddin’ him, right? He’s just got you under some kind of threat, right?” Continues the maid, her eyes scanning you up and down. “Because, sweetheart, you don’ have to do a damn thing you don’ want to.”

“I’m not—we’re not sleeping together. We’ve never … That’s not what this is,” you cover your face with a gloved hand, trying to hide your annoyed facial expression. “You all know I’m the one who hit him a couple of months ago, right? He’s just keeping me here to pay for what I did. But he’s not forcing me to—we’re not having sex. I’m not having sex with him. Is that clear, now?”

“Oh, perfectly,” whispers the last servant, the one who had been quiet. “He can hear all our conversations, yea? With that sound acoustics thing? You’re just being careful, I see what you’re doing. If you want to tell us the truth somewhere that the machines can’t hear us, meet us on the first floor of the apartments tomorrow morning. Lettie here lives up that way, we can all get together and think this through—,”

You can’t restrain yourself, throwing your hands into the air with exasperation, “We aren’t lovers! Outsider’s crooked cock, I barely even know the man! And if you seriously think I’d let Kirin Jindosh bed me without asking politely, then you truly don’t know me well enough to help anyway!” The blood in your face is from anger now, your hands trembling with anxiousness as you stare at their stunned faces.

They appeared quite embarrassed, muttering apologies under their breaths as they slipped past you and back to their duties. You stood there, trembling with fury for a moment longer before your shoulders fell and you regained your composure. They were only trying to help, you knew that. But after the day you’ve had, sitting in your apartment worrying that people were thinking those exact things … they couldn’t have approached you at a worse time.

“I should learn control myself,” you sigh.

“Yes, you really should.” His voice reverberated off the copper walls of the servant’s room, scaring you half to death. “I bet I could have heard you all the way from my office without the sound system. You’re quite prone to such behaviors, aren’t you?”

You felt your heart lurch as you realized he had heard it all. But, instead of mentioning it, you say, “I never had a problem with my anger before I met you, sir.”

His laughter sounds odd coming through the speaker system, short and curt. “Fair enough. Come straight to the office when you’ve the chance. I’ve got to walk you through what you’ll be doing for me.”

And then the sound system cut off with a high-pitched ringing noise, the room falling silent.

That was … ominous.

Regardless, you rushed to tie your apron around your waist, adjusting the cuffs on your uniform. You’d never admit that you were in a hurry to see him, but you indeed were. It’d been a long day without him in it.

You hastily made you way to the elevator, ignoring the strange looks the rest of the staff gave you as you passed them. You could have sworn you heard one of the kitchen maids mutter something about “mistresses” under her breath, but you did your best to ignore her. That wasn’t the case. She was wrong.

How familiar the office had started to become. You didn’t hesitate in the doorway or become distracted by the twirling clockwork pieces down below. You made an immediate turn and faced the inventor, noticing that he was at his usual post—bent over some large piece of machinery at his desk. He was aware of your presence, but he continued to tinker until you were standing just in front of him, your fingers resting on the wood of the desk.

He snuck a glance up at you, finding it interesting that you watched his work without interrupting. He continued to adjust a line of screws until, eventually, he was satisfied and placed his tool onto the desk. Kirin leaned back, letting out a sigh as he folded his hands in front of him. “I’m sure you’re wondering what I’m going to have you do?”

“I’m assuming it has something to do with cleaning or serving drinks, yes?”

One thin eyebrow perks up and a cutting smirk forms on his lips. He regards you silently for a second before correcting, “Neither, I’m afraid. I was getting bored of that anyway. You’re a terribly dreary maid, did you know?”

You felt your face twitch with mild annoyance, though it was mostly playful. “I wasn’t aware.”

As he so often does, Kirin stands in one swift, fluid motion and glides around the side of the desk. Your servant-centric tendencies told you to step back and face him as he approached, but the part of you that secretly wanted him to put his hands on you again forced you to stay solidly grounded. It was an inward struggle, to say the least.

To your disappointment, he passes you and stops at the balcony, staring down at his laboratory. “As you know, I’m an acquaintance of the Duke’s. He’s asked that I lower production costs of the clockwork soldiers, so I have been working night and day to meet his expectations.”

You take the cue and meet him, standing just close enough that he couldn’t and wouldn’t comment on it. Reflecting on his words, he had been absent at dinner for weeks. The only time he really ate was when you brought him biscuits and tea. Sometimes, he wouldn’t even get around to that. More than once you had returned to the office to bring him his daily portions only to see the tea and biscuits from the day before still sitting where you’d left them—and Jindosh as well. He looked increasingly more exhausted; now that you thought about it, he had had bags under his eyes yesterday.

“I see,” you comment shortly.

“You can read and write. You know formalities and you know the law? You understand business, yes?”

This was an odd change of pace, “Of course, sir.”

He turns sideways so that he is leaning against the bars with his narrow waist. “I want you to start handling clockwork sales and all the letters that go in and out of the mansion. I simply don’t have time to deal with such matters, though I initially thought I’d be capable of it.”

You feel your jaw drop a little, surprise washing over you. “But—you have me working the night shift—,”

He smirks, “During the day we have our more … refined customers; nobles who buy clockworks in order to protect themselves or flaunt their wealth. I can handle them myself effortlessly. But in the afternoon, I have visitors from all sorts of social standing who have acquired money by … questionable means in order to purchase my clockworks. This is how I gain most of my revenue. You’ll be dealing with these sorts of people while I spend my time on more important things. I get most of my best work done in the late hours, anyway.”

You are silent for a moment and he begins to scan your face for answers when you refuse to respond. After a significant pause, you murmur, “I don’t think I’m qualified.”

His face falls a little, like he had bestowed some grand gift or honor upon you only to have you refuse it. But, just as quickly, he picks himself back up and waves a hand at you. “Nonsense. I’ve been meaning to hire someone for this sort of thing for awhile. It occurred to me after our discussion yesterday that I’ve been completely wasting your talents. You’re qualified enough.”

While this was all very flattering to hear, you couldn’t help but say, “I … what about that one instance? Where those two men tried to—when they … I panicked, I didn’t know what to do.”

Now it’s his turn to be silent. He looks away from you, avoiding your gaze. He sighs, but its almost intentional, as if he wants you to believe he’s nonchalant about what he says next, “Haven’t I already made it perfectly clear that no harm is going to come to you in this house?”

Neither of you say anything. It’s clear to you that he’s trying to remain nondescript, but he’s anxious. He almost seems as though he’s suddenly aware of himself in a way that he hadn’t been before. Something had changed since yesterday.

“Is this favoritism?” you ask quietly. “I’m grateful, but I know that you could have just as easily hired someone better suited to do this. After all, I didn’t even finish with my degree and that was in law not business. What are you trying to gain from this?”

Kirin returns his gaze to you, the smirk reasserting itself on his features. “Favoritism? That’s not what I had in mind, no. But if you don’t want to work so closely with me, you can just say so, my dear.”

Ah, there it is.

The dignified part of you wants to decline his proposition, but the other part of you, the one that’s desperately infatuated with him, forces you to immediately blurt out, “No, I—!”

His smirk intensifies into a full on sadistic grin as he admires the way you struggle to reform any semblance of sensibility in front of him.

Recollecting yourself, you manage to start again, “I accept your offer, Mr. Jindosh.”

“Good,” he claps his hands together as he likes to do when he gets his way. “That deserves a drink. You’ve been promoted! Isn’t this the first job outside of maid service that you’ve had since your academy days?”

You nod meekly, watching as he strolls to his desk and produces a half empty bottle of rare Pandyssian brandy and two crystal tumblers. He pauses before pouring, noticing that you’ve not budged from your spot by the railing. He almost laughs at the sight of you, rigid and in absolute shock.

“Relax,” he tells you, “This ordeal is a good sign. I’m beginning to forgive you for your treacherous behavior that day. Don’t spoil it by refusing to drink with me.”

You decide to humor him, joining him to grab up your glass. There are no chairs other than his own, so you hesitantly decide to prop yourself up on the corner of his desk, making sure not to knock anything over or get in his way. The first sip of the brandy burns your throat badly; it’s been a year or so since you’ve had something so strong.

And, as always, he was observant and laughed at your facial expressions. “Now, tell me,” he began. The bests conversations with Kirin started with this phrase. “Why are you in love with me?”

You choke back coughs, trying desperately not to spill a drop of the expensive drink. He waits patiently for you to recover, but does not seem to back down at all from his question. All you could do was stare at him, incredulously. “I’m not—I’m not in love with you, alright? It’s just … it’s something smaller. I’ll get past it.”

“Hm, perhaps,” he muses. “But I argue that working this close to me might prevent you from doing just that.”

If you didn’t know any better, you would assume that this conversation was just like any other in which he gave you a question and then proceeded to argue academically. You retort, “This was your idea!”

“Yes.”

“So you can’t just play with me like this, it isn’t very civilized of you. In fact, it’s quite rude. Didn’t you just say you hired me because you needed me?”

“Well, yes,” he admits, his tone airy as though he hasn’t a care in the world, “But I also hinted that I had other reasons. Differing but decisive objectives, if you will. You didn’t answer the question, by the way.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t. Denying the premise of the question does not an answer make,” he chimes, taking a long sip from his glass.

You narrow your eyes at him. “You want me to tell you why I’m attracted to you. Like some sort of funeral reception where I honor you, except that you are not dead, not honorable, and not deserving?”

He grins widely, a fire sparking behind his eyes at your tone and your banters. “Yes, you’ve got the general idea.”

Your lips press into a thin line and you lift the glass back up to take another small drink. The burn has begun to subside. “Are you serious?”

“When am I not?”

The warmth in your stomach helps to comfort you. Fine. You’d give him what he wanted. “Alright, if you insist. I was initially attracted to your overwhelming ego and narcissistic tendencies. Though, I suppose, that was inevitable given your incessant bragging about your own intelligence.”

He gives you a wry look, “Ah, you aren’t insinuating that these are my only qualities, are you?”

Returning the expression, you retort, “Of course not, sir. Just the finer ones. I couldn’t help but fall for your lack of basic human compassion as well. So charming, as it was, I should have known this would happen.”

He grins, a deep chuckle rumbling from his chest. The sound of it distracted you from your little game and you couldn’t stop yourself from feeling sincere all of a sudden. He looked so handsome; he always looked handsome.

Your smug grin falls and you look away from him, staring into the quickly vanishing contents of your glass. “But, if I’m being honest with you, I never intended for this to happen. I wish you’d never found out.”

He’s quiet for just a moment, but you don’t dare to look up at him. “Why’s that?”

“Isn’t that obvious?” you laugh weakly, setting your glass down beside you. Your head swims. “You think I’m pathetic—an experiment even, you said so yourself. You might have fun toying with me, and it’s true that I won’t stop you. But it’s just …” here, you glance left, over your shoulder, pretending to look out at the chandelier. Through your peripheral vision, you can see he hasn’t budged from his spot though he is staring right at you. “I’m not going to get what I want, so it’s all meaningless.”

You take a chance and let your eyes meet his, surprised to see that he is wearing a totally new expression. Not smug or condescending, not playful, not angry. He’s not even observing you.

“And what do you want?”

He wants you to say it. Say it. Admit it.

“You.”

The humming of the machinery is the only sound in the room. You said it. You admitted it to yourself and to him and the Outsider. And the worst part? It was true. Your hands shook, making you very grateful that you had set your glass down already. Ha. You wanted him. You wanted his attention and his praise and his company. It was so simple, now that you’d said it aloud. Nevertheless, he was bound to come up with some sort of sarcastic retort—

“What’s stopping you from having me?”

You froze. Even your hands stopped shaking. The blood rushed to your head and you could only hear a faint ringing in your ear. What did he say?

The sound of his desk chair wheeling across the metal floor jolted you, forcing you to turn your head to face him. You could run for it, if you wanted to, but that couldn’t be your solution to every time Kirin Jindosh cornered you. He stands in front of you, close, like the day before. Had it only been a day? It felt like years had passed.

“If you want me,” he begins, his voice clear and steady but so quiet that only you could hear him, “Then demonstrate what you’re willing to do. Impress me with this new assignment I’ve given you. Take all of this time off my hands then, perhaps,” he tips your chin up, “When this business with the Duke is over and I have my army of clockwork soldiers, I’ll have more time to give to you. Do you understand?”

The beating of your own heart was deafening. He looks at you expectantly. “Yes, sir.”

His face shifts and the smirk returns, softer this time. So sudden that you could barely realize, he bows his head and presses his lips to yours. Not deep, not passionate, but enough to set every part of you on fire. He pulls away and stares down at you, marveling at your reaction.

“Good. You’re dismissed.”


	6. Chapter Six

If he were to be completely honest with himself, this might have been the first time in years where he had no idea what he was doing. Yes, of course he knew he was working on perfecting the clockworks and he knew he had to speed up production somehow. He knew the plans with Delilah, what would come into play in just a few short months, what that meant for the empire. His objectives were clear, that was true, but it had been ages since he’d dabbled in his own personal life.

The typical inventor spent almost 95% percent of their time focused on their work. This was just a fact he had observed working alongside Sokolov and Joplin, as well as reading about Roseburrow and, more recently, Hypatia. He had applied this notion in his own life and found it to be the most efficient way to get work done. Let historians say that Kirin Jindosh was chiefly devoted to his work.

And, really, it hadn’t been an issue until quite recently.

Looking back, perhaps he had been mistaken in sparing you. He hadn’t told you yet—and now likely never would—but if any other servant had laid a hand on him like that, he would have gutted them alive without an anesthetic. He had no problem whatsoever when it came to killing—a sadistic part of him enjoyed it thoroughly. But, with you, he had taken a chance and was only just beginning to regret it.

What he had told you had not been completely true, though he had seen something in you on that fateful day that he had been living without his whole life. You were not exactly at his level of intelligence but that was to be expected—he was a genius beyond his time. Nevertheless, you had been able to make the impression of an individual with much more to offer than most would think. He had humored that and followed his instincts—yet the truth was, he had never intended to let you live for more than a few weeks.

His initial plan was to break you. To see that light fade from your eyes similar to death, but not quite. He had had several plans such as overloading you with work and demands and perhaps even making you stand by and watch dissections or something of the like. Kirin had taken great satisfaction in the very idea, frequently giggling to himself as he worked just at the thought.

But then, you had gone and opened your mouth again. Only three weeks after you had started working for him, he’d found you in his gallery. You had been hard at work; it was a wonder you weren’t able to hear the panels of the bridge folding down or his footsteps as he’d walked down the path to the glass door. He had watched you for a moment, his thoughts consisting mostly of what he planned to do next—should he tell you he had spotted a stain and to start mopping all over again? Should he request that you scrub the floors manually with a rag on your hands and knees?

But the longer he stared the more he noticed that you were deep in thought. Damn his own curiosity; he had never been the type to go in for the kill when he had the chance. Toying with people was so much more fun to him. That was why he let intruders roam about, taunting them over the sound systems. He was partial to the thrill of the chase.

And that day, he had been as well. In part, he was a little embarrassed to find that you were intelligent. His initial attraction to you had been that you had a spirit to break and he had been so utterly bored at that point. But after you had confessed that you had studied and taken interest in education, he had let go of himself a little too much and actually wanted to learn more, if only for a moment. He remembers thinking, “I can’t believe I didn’t see it. Of course there was something more there that caught my eye.” He should have seen it in the way you held yourself and the manor with which you spoke—you were a learned individual.

Shaking himself free of the conversation had taken more effort than he cared to admit. He had swiftly changed the topic back to the arrangement he had made with you in an attempt to remind himself what he had in store—the things he wanted to do to you. 

“It’s such a long time and I’m not known for being a amicable employer. You might grow to hate me.” He had said this with a collection of vile thoughts in his mind.

But you had stood your ground to him and retorted, “Hating you would not very professional. Now if you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to distract you from your work any longer.”

And he had just … stared at you as you left. He couldn’t think of anything to say back to you. How could you not be even the least bit intimidated by him—he was Kirin Jindosh, damn it. He crafted the greatest weapons of the empire out of the inner workings of his own mind and you weren’t even the least bit concerned with standing up to him?

He had tried, at that very moment, to reassess you. Perhaps he had gotten something wrong in his initial analysis? Were you not who he thought you to be?

Shortly after you had left him standing there in the gallery, he had stormed back to his lab. He didn’t like being wrong, not about anything. How dare you surprise him like that!

His anger should have fueled his desire to torturing you, but it couldn’t. The reason he was so angry was because he knew he couldn’t gain anything out of tormenting you; he now knew you would not react the way he had hypothesized so what was the point?

And yet, here he was with a newly hired maid roaming his house expecting him to make a move at any second that would explain his intentions. But now, even he couldn’t comprehend why he kept you here.

In truth, he thought about sending you home after that day in the gallery.

After all, he was busy and needed to focus on the Duke’s demands. In part, he spent that time with you in order to have an excuse whenever Luca came asking about the production. It would be much easier for him to explain he was taking some time away to clear his mind.

But you always ended up doing the opposite of that, which landed him in predicaments such as the one he was in right now.

He had dismissed you from the office, watching you unsteadily stand from his desk, curtsey, and leave. Almost immediately after you vanished from his sight and he heard the elevator chime, he let out a shaky breath and nearly collapsed in his desk chair. What was that?

Kirin was the sort of man that enjoyed planning things. He built this house from the very blueprints he had sketched up. He planned where to place clockworks in case of intruders. He even thought about the placement of his desk so that he could be aware of his surroundings at all times. But he had not planned for this. He hadn’t planned for you at all.

Where did it start, really? Was it when he started allowing you to joke with him? Was it when he asked you to start bringing him supper? Was it when he saw those men with their hands on you?

Ah, no, he recalled how furious he had been at that sight; it must have been some time before.

Or maybe it had been slow and gradual? Perhaps it was so subtle that he couldn’t pinpoint the exact second?

He wasn’t in love with you. He was, however, obsessed with you. That much, at the very least, was obvious to him. Maybe this was the closest he’d ever get to being in love. It definitely caused you to take up a hefty 30% of his work time, which he frankly could not afford at this point.

Yesterday, he had planned to stop.

Breanna had always been keen, just as he was. She could pick up on the smallest of details. The look she had given him when he stepped out of the smoking room had been almost unbearable—she knew.

To what extent, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps she thought you were his lover, as many have guessed to his amusement. Or maybe she suspected that he had been telling you information that pertained to the coup. Either way, he wished it had been discrete. She never commented on it, but it was still too close of a call.

Breanna had left earlier than expected. Kirin had been quiet and she had grown bored of his company after the business was out of the way. What she couldn’t have known was that he’d been preoccupied with thoughts about what to say to you once you arrived at five. He wasn’t nervous, per say, but he wanted to do it correctly and quickly so that he could focus all his time and energy on the clockworks project.

Yet, after he called you to meet with him earlier than scheduled, he had stood there and thought about the last few weeks wherein you had provided him with a sort of company he hadn’t felt in ages. Most people adored Kirin initially and then grew to spurn him. You, however, had done the opposite. He couldn’t think of a single individual in his life that genuinely seemed to enjoy being in his company, not even anyone in Delilah’s inner circle. His mother had hated him, his brother had taken care of him, Sokolov despised him, everyone at the academy loathed him. But not a single soul had ever been fond of him.

And yet, that was what he had seen in your eyes. You loved him. He had lied when he said he’d seen that look before—no one had ever been in love with him.

You had hated him, but then you had forgiven him. You had grown to love him.

He sits in his office, washing down his second glass of Pandyssian Brandy, his brow wrinkled in thought. Tonight he had promoted you. He wasn’t lying when he said that he had been wasting your talents. You probably couldn’t tell due to the marvelous size and beauty of his mansion, but he was tight on money currently. Promoting you to do this task was the wisest thing he’d done in weeks.

But the promotion wasn’t what troubled him. It was your confession—so sincere and pure and, if he wished, easily corruptible. The best way to torment you now would be to lead you on then crush you when he had you in his grasp. But that wasn’t his plan, anymore.

Due to traumatic experiences, he couldn’t have come to realization that he loved you even if he wanted to. But, in truth, he did care about you. The way he perceived it, therefore, was flawed.

He had been a little risky tonight; pretending to play a game with you always helped boost his suave attitude. The words he had spoken had been out of character for the Kirin Jindosh the empire knew.

He had never known love and he had never experienced courting before, but he knew what words to say to make you blush—oh how he enjoyed making you blush, it was indeed very interesting.

Kissing you had been a sporadic occurrence. He hadn’t planned it. He hadn’t done it as part of the game. If he had wanted to, he could have accomplished the same goal without the kiss.

But he had wanted to do it. Strange. 

Jindosh had an eye for aesthetics but he somehow lacked the ability to pick up on human beauty and attraction. Meaning, he wasn’t involved with you for your appearance. Whenever he did “play the game” with you, he did it to see your reactions which appealed far more to him than your beauty. The way your brow furrows when he upsets you, the way you can’t look him in the eye when he stands close, the way your voice sounds when you banter with him.

Kirin sits up in his chair, breaking away from the consuming thoughts. He attempts to put the Brandy away, but he had already started his third glass. His vision swam. Tonight would not be productive for at least another hour. He sighs, situating himself back into his seat to wait off the drunkenness. Ah, he hadn’t been this intoxicated in a good while; he didn’t have time.

There it was! That was the problem with this little game he was playing with you! He didn’t have the time to be distracted like this. If Delilah knew that he was taking two or three breaks a day just to hear your voice she’d have stormed the mansion a month ago. Hell, if he had known that you’d have this effect on him he would never have hired you.

The problem was that he hadn’t realized what you were doing to him until it was too late. There was no going back now; you were too important to him now—an integral piece of his thoughts.

If he wasn’t thinking of ways to speed of clockwork production or adjust their depth perception and sound detection, he was—he was daydreaming! Kirin Jindosh! Grand Inventor to the Duke! The smartest mind the empire had ever seen! Daydreaming!

It infuriated him. Even now, a little drunk and weary, he fumed with irritation and shame. This wasn’t part of the plan, he didn’t think it possible to become so attached to another person. What’s more, you weren’t even a fellow intellect! You were a servant! A maid! A college drop out! At least he could say that he was banned and he didn’t leave on his own accord. It made no sense at all that he was obsessed with someone like you but here he sat! Indeed quite smitten!

The longer he dwelled on the idea, the closer and closer he got to the conclusion that he might be falling in love with you. It replaced that anger with fear. This couldn’t continue, if that was true. He couldn’t allow himself to succumb to such a lowly human instinct. He was too important to find himself groveling at your feet!

So he sat there and frantically doubted the decisions he had made. He shouldn’t have kissed you; though it had been part of “the game”, he had wanted to do it and he had enjoyed the intimacy of it. He shouldn’t keep promoting you! Even if it was benefitting him and even if he did genuinely enjoy your company, it was foolish to let you get so close to him—he was part of a coup to take down the Empress of the empire!

This thought troubled him greatly not only because he couldn’t allow you to disrupt Delilah’s plans, but also because he was worried what Delilah or the Duke might do if they discovered what was going on. The rest of the party would have no qualms sending Grim Alex to slit your throat while you slept. He recoiled at the thought.

If it came to that, he’d send you away.

It would probably be in his best interest to do that now while he still had the chance, but he couldn’t deny himself the pleasure your presence supplied.

He then focused on a single aspect of this entire dilemma—you were in love with him. If he wanted it, you could be his in an instant. All he would have to do was say those three insignificant words and it would be that simple. What a strange thought; he’d never felt the need to initiate a relationship with anyone before. His legacy was far more important to him than any man or woman ever could be. But the truth was that he was afraid no one would ever sincerely love him again if he let you go. What a pathetic fear. It wasn’t practical at all—he shouldn’t need anyone to make him feel complete. He thought he’d put that sort of thing behind him after his mother had died and his brother had sailed to Gristol to never be heard from again. He could do anything and he could do it all alone.

But … he could have you if he wanted to. He didn’t have to be alone if he didn’t want to. He had an opportunity to experience something new and exciting. The question presented itself: was it worth the risk of losing you to Delilah’s wrath or failing to live up to his idealized legacy if he got too involved?

He sat there, sobering up, and he thought of your lips against his and the soft gasp you’d made when he had surprised you like that. The way you smelled like lavender and honey. The way your eyes glimmer when you listen to him talk. The smile you give him when he says something incredible.

Ah, yes. He had no idea what he was doing.

Finally sober enough to stand safely, he makes his way over to the elevator, selecting the floor without looking at the panel. He would keep you here. He would continue “the game”. He would claim you as his own when the time was right, when it was safe. Kirin hated to admit it to himself, but he was excited by the idea of having someone love him unconditionally. It childish, but he felt almost giddy when he pictured you in his arms, saying his name, wanting him and only him. Though, it wasn’t entirely a new concept to him—he wanted to be seen as someone worth admiration.

The arc pylon was off when he reached the glass foyer. When Kirin stepped out of the elevator, the guardsman snapped into a stricter position, greeting him with, “Good evening, Mr. Jindosh.”

Kirin ignored his presence and proceeded left to the marbled room. One of his offices was located near the far back right hand corner, already locked in place. He stepped foot into the small room and sat himself down at the desk, reviewing some of the paperwork he had laying out from a few days ago. Most of it consisted of clockwork receipts and letters to his parts suppliers. This was soon to be your job. He collected the scattered papers and filed them away, making sure to flip through his file folder to see that everything was already in order. The safe behind him held a small fortune—he still had the money you’d given him on that first day stored inside. With his busy schedule, he hadn’t had the time to send it all to the bank. He’d have you do that first thing tomorrow, before the banks closed.

After he finished reviewing the state of the office, he concluded that this would be a suitable job for you. It was also a good distance away from his own office which would allow him to think straight for the first time in a few weeks. He’d still get to see you two or three times a day, but at least now you’d be busy with actual work and the conversation would be strictly business, more or less.

He had also given you a task that he knew you wouldn’t fail at. If you wanted him enough, you’d work tirelessly at this new job to achieve your goal. Fortunately for Kirin, you were the type of person who dedicated themselves to their work—a quality of yours he had taken notice of right away and instantly revered.

Shortly after he tidied up the office, he drew up a note to place in your locker that stated, simply, “Tomorrow you will no longer be a maid. Wear what you deem suitable for your new occupation.”

Yes, this would do.

The rest of that night and the following day passed by so quickly that he hadn’t noticed the sun come and go. The only indication he received that time had passed was your entrance into his office. At first, he looked up, a little bewildered. Then when he noticed that you weren’t wearing your typical maid’s uniform, it struck him suddenly that he had forgotten to sleep his average four hours. Ah, he’d regret that later.

You were the first to speak, “Have you slept yet? One of the maids said she saw you roaming the halls early this morning. Tell me you haven’t been sitting here since then?”

The corners of your lips were turned up just a little. He noticed.

Kirin sighs, looking down on his notes that he’d been taking. They were filled with utter nonsense. He had needed those four hours. “I’m afraid that sleep alludes me yet again. No matter, I suppose you’re wondering what I have in store for you today.”

He stands up to greet you properly, his bones protesting their stiffness. You notice the grimace on his face as he stretches. “And have you eaten?” you ask, quieter this time.

Kirin shoots you a look. You tilt your head down. “I’ve not. I suppose I’ll have to resume my dinner meals now that I’ve reassigned you.”

“The cook needs to serve a purpose, you know. And you couldn’t live off of tea and biscuits forever, Kirin.”

His breath catches at the sound of his name. Ah, come now. Gain better control than that.

“His food is rubbish, anyway,” he gives you a wry smile, striding past you toward the elevator. “Come on, I’ll show you to your new station.”

The sound of your light footsteps behind him is almost comforting. “You’re serious, then. You’re trusting me with your finances. Weren’t you the one to tease me about thievery just a month or so ago?”

He bites back a grin. “I don’t recall. Weren’t you the one who used the extra change to pay for an apartment building?”

“How did you find out about that?” you gasp, moving to stand by his side in the elevator.

“I have my resources,” he says simply. The other maids loved to gossip and sometimes he eavesdropped. It is only wise to spy on one’s servants when one is a member of a coup to overthrow the empress. “In any case, I’ve already told you that you’re qualified for the job. Call it whatever you like, assistant to the Grand Inventor, Financial Advisor to the Grand Inventor. Take your pick.”

You fall silent for a second and he waits excitedly for your next words. He’d missed the sound of your voice. “I sound like a secretary, really. Though don’t most secretaries have an affair with their employer?”

He couldn’t help himself, “Isn’t that what everyone’s saying about us? Why not fuel the flame?”

Kirin glances down at you to see warmth spread across your cheeks. A success.

“That’s unprofessional, isn’t it? Isn’t all of this arrangement unprofessional?”

“You certainly care an awful lot about whatever job you’re working, I’ll give you that. But if it bothers you that much, I can … persuade them all to stop gossiping.”

Your face whitens. “Oh no, no, no that won’t be necessary—I’ll just ignore them. Besides, we haven’t done anything wrong.”

He regards you for a second, thinking. “You don’t think what happened last night was a little scandalous?”

Your head snaps up and you look at him, your lips pressed into a thin line, your eyes searching his. You wouldn’t find anything; he was good at hiding himself.

“I thought … maybe you had had too much to drink. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, really.”

Ah, so sincere! So truthful and honest! He was beginning to adore this side of you. “No, that was all intentional, my dear. Nothing is ever an accident.”

You look away from him to hide the small smile on your lips, but he catches it anyway.

“I suppose you remember what I said, too?”

“I … yes.” You murmur as the elevator slows to a stop. “I do, sir.”

“Good,” he smirks, striding out of the elevator and toward the office he’d chosen for you. “I’m a man of my word. I trust that you won’t let me down.”

The two of you arrive at the office before you can retort. He enters, but you stand still at the doorway. He takes notice, but doesn’t think anything of it. “This is where you’ll be stationed. You’ll have privacy here, I believe. Every now and again the floors might switch, just be sure to be careful about where you stand. I’ve had one too many clockworks destroyed from getting caught between the floors. This is your desk. I’ve taken the liberty of organizing it properly. This drawer over here contains all the receipts and this one holds the commissions. This file folder here is full of letters from those wishing to be guests here to observe a clockwork. Ah, and the safe—this holds all the money from the exchanges, as you know. I have three rules: only accept coin, never sell to someone who doesn’t pay upfront, and always get a full signature with each receipt. Hm, what else? Do you understand everything I’ve told you thus far—?”

He stops his rambling to look up at you which is how he noticed the look on your face. You were running your fingers alone the bookshelves, glancing around at the polished desk and the stationary. Your eyes were glossy. “This is mine?”

His words caught in his throat. All he could do was watch you slowly make your way toward him, touching the smooths surface of the desk and scanning the rest of the area before timidly taking your seat in the comfortable, expensive desk chair. Your hands came up to cup around your mouth. “I’ve never had an office of my own before.” Your voice is a muffled whisper. “I always dreamed I would, someday when I became … if I finished my law degree. But I thought … I never thought I’d actually have one.”

Kirin let’s out a small, airy laugh. He’s doesn’t find it funny, but he isn’t sure how else to respond to you like this. “What? Did you think I was going to make you do all this paperwork in the kitchens?”

You look up at him, your hand still covering your mouth. But he can see that you’re smiling underneath them. “I didn’t know what to think. Thank you.”

Something flutters in his cold chest. He clears his throat, glancing away. “Yes, well . . .” he wanted to say something sardonic, but he was surprisingly coming up short. “You’re quite welcome.”

He almost jumps out of his skin when he feels your small hand wrap around his own. His gaze snaps back to you, but you’re merely clasping his hand softly while the other picks up letters and turns books over to read the titles. He instead looks down at the tiny hand in his own larger, calloused one. Your thumb brushes over his prosthetic affectionately as you begin to comment on his vast collection of Sokolov novels. He’s not listening, though. He can’t seem to tear his eyes away from the small bit of contact.

Kissing you had not been a mistake, after all.

He gives your hand a small squeeze, which draws your attention back to him. “Kirin?”

Jindosh stares down at you, saying nothing. You return is gaze, questioning. He is filled with many different thoughts all at once, things he wants to say but knows he will regret later. Things he wants to do, but he knows he can’t just yet. Restraint, Kirin, learn it.

Instead, he pulls his hand out of your own, hastily turns on his heel and walks to the other side of the desk, “The code to the safe 023. I need you to run the money to the bank before it closes.” His back to you, he pauses outside of the office.

Hesitation, again. He had less control over himself than he thought he did.

With this last thought, he calls over his shoulder, “I’ll leave you to it, then. Call on me if you need assistance.”

Then he leaves without another word. His walk to the elevator was fast, his long legs carrying him in determined strides. He had to gain some distance. As the metal bars closed and he was alone, he cursed under his breath, running a hand through his hair.

This was going to be more challenging than he thought it would be. Your effect on him was much stronger than he had initially hypothesized.

Kirin looks down at his hands, running his fingers along the prosthetic appendage you had touched just a few seconds ago.

It was much stronger than he had imagined.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I’m sorry this took so long! And I’m sorry for all the typos recently! Y_Y  
> TW: Blood, injuries, sleep deprivation, starvation, sexual activity, naked Kirin what up

You sat upright in bed, your eyes flittering about the room. A damp sweat pools on the small of your back; the window to your apartment has been left open, yet despite the cold air you feel as though your entire body is on fire. It’s not a fever, no, it’s the dream again. The one you’ve been having all week.  
Growing up, you had never had reoccurring dreams. But recently, your life has been so reclusive that there was not much else to dream about other than Kirin Jindosh.  
And these dreams, they weren’t very appropriate.  
The longer you sit, the colder your body gets so you slide out of your blankets and close the window. Just outside, you can see the sun begin to set. Your sleep schedule has adjusted to fit your new shifts. You would be going into work in about an hour or so, judging by the clock on your nightstand. You let out a sigh and begin to get dressed.  
If only your job was as enticing as you dreamt it to be.  
You ready a kettle in the kitchen, making yourself a cup of tea before you have to go in. The apartment was starting to feel like a home, but it really couldn’t compare to the comfort you felt from the mansion. The servants always used to talk about how the moving walls and shifting floors made them uneasy, but you had grown to love the ingenuity behind them and admire the thought process.  
You’d prefer to live there if it weren’t for your new line of work being dreadfully uneventful. Cleaning hadn’t ever been pleasurable or easy, but it had allowed you intimate moments with Kirin that you didn’t get enough of nowadays. Mostly, he stayed in his office and worked but occasionally he might walk you to the front door, ushering paperwork into your arms and giving you new assignments. The only real interaction you had had with him in a couple of weeks was when you’d entered his office in need of his signature and found him slumped over his desk, snoring contently.  
It bothered you that you couldn’t see more of him, yes, but it really worried you that he was pushing himself too hard. Handling his incoming and outgoing letters, you knew that Duke Luca Abele would be coming to dinner in just a week. The Duke’s secretary had written the letter and had stated that the Duke expected a clockwork presentation before dinner, but at the rate he was going, Kirin wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes open, let alone hold a proper conversation over supper.  
When you had informed him of the Duke’s visit, he had scolded you in his sleep-deprived bad attitude that you were not to read letters from any of his close associates—namely Breanna Ashworth, Alexandria Hypatia, Luca Abele, or Delilah Copperspoon. He expressly forbade you from even handling them and instructed you to take them to him immediately upon their arrival. He was too agitated at the time to argue or even tease, so you had agreed to his demands and decided to leave it be.  
Today, before you begin your work, you planned on speaking with him.  
Whether or not the clockworks could be made perfect, Jindosh was working himself into an early grave—something his enemies might celebrate, but you certainly couldn’t. He meant too much to you now.  
The wind that sliced you on the carriage ride to the mansion was so cold it brought tears to your eyes. The white stone steps leading to the front door were covered in a thin layer of ice. Karnaca’s seasons were always warmer than Gristol’s and Tyvia’s, with the Months of Ice and Hearths being the only periods of frigid weather. You would have to dress heavier for the next dozen weeks or so.  
Kirin’s home smelled of baked goods today. You usually couldn’t smell the kitchen from this floor in the house, but whenever the chef made a specific type of pastry, the scent wafted. It was calming to your senses as you entered the foyer, your gloved hand pulling the lever to bring down the staircase and open the panel blocking the door. As the gears and belts came to a gradual stop and you took your first two steps toward the door, you heard the telltale sound of the intercoms whirring to life.  
“Is that my secretary I hear? It is isn’t, I can tell by the width and weight of your strides and steps. My dear, I need your assistance with something. The wall of light has been deactivated. Please come to my bedroom at once.”  
He didn’t leave time for a reply, the intercoms powering off with a high-pitched ring.  
You stood there, your paperwork in your arms, staring blankly into space. Well, perhaps today would be as exciting as you had dreamt it to be.  
The speed with which you made your way up the stairs was probably embarrassing, given that you were almost certain he could notice the bounce in your step as you scurried along. What were you expecting, exactly, from this encounter? You dared not to let your mind wander.  
Just as he had said, the wall of light was lifeless as you stepped through it, bustling down the hallway. When the hall forked right, it overlooked the glass room below where you saw the blurry, red silhouettes of guardsmen on duty. You wasted no time observing and instead rested your hands on the closed wooden doors, heaving them open with difficulty. The warmth of steam should have alerted you of what was to follow, but you were preoccupied in your thoughts.  
You rounded the corner and found yourself in front of your employer, a bloodied cloth pressed to his temple and a towel wrapped around his thin waist. He was sitting by the bathtub, propped up against it. Your face fell, “What happened to you?”  
He rolls his eyes, mostly at himself. “Come here, will you? I need your help to stand up.”  
You were hesitant to approach him in his current state, but he had given you an order and he was injured, so you managed to bite down your conditioned proper instincts. “You’re bleeding.”  
“You’re observant.”  
Sending him a sharp glare, you kneel beside him, careful to not to get too close. “Move your hand.”  
He grimaces, but doesn’t argue. “This is fine, I’ll deal with it in a moment. I only need your help to stand up.”  
“Why can’t you stand?” you ask, blanching at the deep gash against his skin. Blood was still freely flowing out of the wound.  
He’s quiet for a second, as if he’s conflicted on whether or not he wanted to share the information. After you made no move to help him or move past the question, he retorted, “I’ve been dealing with . . . fatigue for the past few hours. I must have briefly lost consciousness and fallen. It’s not of your conern—,”  
“Are you serious?” You snap, snatching the bloody rag away from him. His jaw fell open and he stared at you with agitated confusion as you rose and marched to the towel-cabinet, producing a clean rag. “How long is ‘a few hours’? When was the last time you slept? The last time you ate?”  
Again, he dodges, “You do know I’m a grown man? I can close up a wound like this, I assure you. I’ve done it on plenty of cadavers.”  
“You know that’s not what I’m upset about,” returning to him, you had him hold the rag against the wound before gesturing for him to throw an arm over your shoulder. “You haven’t eaten or slept in days, have you? You know I’m not a fool; you can’t even stand on your own.”  
He is in no condition to get angry with you, but that doesn’t stop him. “If I had known you’d come here with a pointless lecture, I’d have just bled out on the spot to save you the breath. Next time, I assure you, I won’t make the mistake of asking for your help again.”  
You have to bite your tongue to keep from saying something back, instead focusing that anger into strength as you lift the inventor off the floor. One of his arms is wrapped over your shoulder, his hand clasped in your own as you support him. The other is holding up the towel, his grasp shaking with hunger. Even if he was being an ass, you were about to go down to the kitchen and demand an early lunch for him.  
You pull him to his feet and walk him over to the lever, letting go of his bare waist to pull the handle down. As the floors rotate, Kirin adds, “I will, however, need you to get the repair kit from the room next door; the one where I keep all the silvergraph mixtures. It should be under the desk in the bottom right cabinet.”  
“I’m going to stitch it for you.”  
“That won’t be necessary.”  
“Outsider’s crooked— look at your hands, Kirin! You’re shaking. You couldn’t even thread the needle. Now stop fighting me, I’m going to do this for you whether you want me to or not.”  
He’s uncharacteristically quiet after that. The floors lock into place and you carefully help him sit down on his bed. “Tell me where your wardrobe is and I’ll get you some clean clothes before we start,” you say, reaching behind him to pull the blanket over his bare shoulders. He sends you a strange look before giving up and telling you where to find them. You leave him on the edge of the bed and retreat into the hallway to your left through the newly opened archway. Taking a right, you stroll straight ahead into the silvergraph room, finding the medical kit he had told you about. After picking out an armful of clothes, you returned to the bedroom to find him exactly where you left him, his hair dripping onto the hardwood floors.  
He gestures for you to give him the medical kit, but you instead shove the clothes into his arms, turning to the circle table in the center of the room to begin unpacking the materials. “I won’t look, just get dressed while I get this stuff ready,” you instruct, an embarrassed ripple in your voice. “Can’t have you catching the plague, too.”  
You hear him chuckle. “What if I need help?”  
“You won’t.”  
You hear him exclaim, “These are evening clothes!”  
“Yes, and?”  
“I’m not planning on sleeping any time soon, I’ve still got work to do.”  
You fight the urge to whirl around and instead resort to angrily slamming the medical kit closed. “Kirin Jindosh, you are going to get some rest if I have to make you.”  
He finally manages to clothe himself without standing. “You don’t have that authority, keep that in mind. Don’t start getting big ideas just because of a promotion. I can still make you a maid again, you know.”  
A sigh of frustration escapes you and you turn to face him, your face stern. “Mr. Jindosh, I’m not trying to be insubordinate. You’re not taking care of yourself and I’m just . . . what if you had seriously hurt yourself and I wasn’t around to help you? What about that legacy you care so much about? If you meet your demise on a bathroom floor, what are they going to say about you?”  
He watches you carefully for a moment, in silence. Instead of waiting for a response, you shake your head and continue with what you were doing. “This is going to sting a bit,” you say to him, dabbing alcohol onto a clean cloth. He pulls the bloody one away from his forehead and allows you disinfect the area. This was your extent of knowledge in the medical field; you were just happy the wound wasn’t worse.  
You watch as his dark eyes flinch with pain as the damp rag comes in contact with his open gash. He doesn’t make a sound or lean away from you, which reminds you that he’s had much greater injuries than this—the prosthetic, that is. After the area was cleaned up, you returned to the table and picked up the needle that you had left soaking in a jar of the disinfectant. “I’ll have to warn you, though, I’m horrible at sewing.”  
“Oh, brilliant. Fortunately for you I don’t pay much attention to my own reflection, so I’ll never know.”  
“I don’t think this will leave a visible scar. It’s deep, but it’s not wide. But, you know, some women like scars.”  
He doesn’t say a word, but you practically hear smirk.  
After the needle had been threaded, you made your way back to the bedside and stood in front of him. “I’ll be careful, I promise. You can trust me” you vowed, brushing a strand of his hair out of the way. He looked different with his hair down around his sharp features.  
“I don’t have choice, now do I?”  
Closing the gash took a little over fifteen minutes. You had to stand in front of him, his legs open to allow you to get closer. He watched you closely as you worked, making you incredibly self-aware the entire time. Though, he didn’t seem to want to make you uneasy; by all accounts, he just enjoyed studying your face while you were concentrated on something.  
“There, that wasn’t so bad, hm?” you finish wiping away the last of the blood with the disinfected rag, picking up roll of bandages to close the area.  
Kirin looks half-asleep by this point, his eyes half-lidded and his comments only half as witty as normal. He’s so clearly exhausted that it’s saddening.  
You slow to a halt after finishing the bandages, your hands falling slowly from their spot near his temples to gently take his face into their grasp. His eyes flutter opened, just barely able to keep themselves from closing. “Will you please do something for me?” you say quietly, leaning in just a little further so that your stomach pressed against his chest. If he wanted, he could rest his head against your chest at this angle. But he keeps himself upright.  
“If I can. What is it?”  
You stare at him for a minute, pity rising up fast. Before he can protest, you press your lips against the newly wrapped bandages, pulling him into you so that you could hold him close for just a second. He goes rigid for an instant until your kiss ends and you move to nuzzle your face against the crown of his head. Then, his arms hesitantly raise to wrap around you, weakly holding you there against him. “Take better care of yourself. Please. Just let me help you this one time, then you can do whatever you want and I’ll never bother you again. Kirin, please.”  
Your heart must have been very audible from where he was positioned, but he didn’t comment on it. In fact, he was very polite as he pulled away from you, leaning back to look you in the eyes. “Alright. Just this once.”  
Your shoulders fall with a relieved sigh, “Thank you.”  
He doesn’t make a move to let you go, large hands still on your waist. You feel his thumb rub small circles, something he usually only did when he was being very affectionate. There’s a second between the two of you were you have his face in your hands and his eyes locked on you, then in the next, you’re kissing him delicately, your hands threading into his wet hair. You’re trying to be careful and not hurt him, but at the same time, you’re feeling overwhelmed with emotion and are struggling to stop yourself.  
And he’s not stopping either. His hands move from your waist to your ribcage, pulling you forward until you’re forced to put both knees on either side of him, straddling him while not putting weight on anything but the mattress. His lips move, but they don’t leave for very long before he readjusts and continues again, his breath warm against your face. His skin is so smooth under the collar of his evening shirt, your fingers trailing a little too far just to feel more of him. In return, his hands move closer to your chest, attempting to touch—  
He flinches as the two of you accidently bump into one another, causing pain to shoot through his new wound. You become acutely aware of your position and the mysterious presence of something pressing against your thigh. “I—I’m so sorry. You should be resting. I don’t know what came over me,” for the first time since he had found out your attraction to him, the tables had turned. You were able to easily collect yourself while he stared with glossy, heated eyes and parted lips, looking equal amounts aroused and confused.  
Your face was warm, but not with embarrassment. You were just very pleased.  
“Alright, I’m going to go down to the kitchen and fetch you something to eat before you—how did you used to put it? Wither away.”  
He visibly shakes his head in order to clear it, his voice lower than normal, “Then you’re coming back, yes?”  
“To . . . to your room?”  
His hands slide down your frame so that they’re back at your hips. “Where else, my dear?”  
“I have work to do, you know,” you give him a wry smile, smoothing his hair back with one hand while the other rests fondly against his cheek. “Work that you hired me to do.”  
“I’m giving you the day off.”  
“You can’t just—,” you can’t stop yourself from laughing, “You need rest.”  
“I can assure you, madam, that I would sleep just as comfortably with you there if not more so.”  
You were starting to grow quiet fond of this side of him; when he’s not being a pretentious bastard and expresses himself truthfully. The corners of your mouth tug upward and you sigh, admitting defeat. “You know I have appointments to keep. And you should be resting, not . . . anything else. That wasn’t part of the deal, remember?”  
He narrowed his eyes at you, his head clearing up a little better. “Oh, yes. We made an agreement not to proceed here until the business with the Duke was done . . . who’s confounded idea was that, I wonder?”  
“Who’s to say?” you hate to untangle yourself from his arms; you had missed his touch more than you cared to admit. But you needed to get him something to eat before he starved to death. “I’ll be back in just a moment.”  
He nodded to you, watching silently as you left toward the elevator, headed for the kitchen.  
\--  
Six hours had passed and Kirin was still sleeping. This was the longest he had rested in years, to your knowledge. Every so often, you would go up and check on him to make sure he hadn’t wondered back off to his office only to find him peacefully asleep.  
It relieved you greatly.  
In your office you prepared for your next appointment, running your fingers along your lips while you thought. You would have been more than happy to let things continue the way they were going earlier, but he was tired and injured; it would have been wrong.  
Besides, you had several receipts and guests coming tonight to purchase Jindosh’s clockworks. The first half had already come and gone, only two or three could actually afford one. You’d gotten a couple of threats, but oddly enough, none of them attempted to harm you when a clockwork was present. The next visitor had been on the waiting list for a while now, since before Jindosh had given you the job. He had repeatedly put this person farther and farther back with little comments by the name such as, ‘Keeps threatening to kill me. Amusing, but annoying’ and ‘Has attempted to haggle with me on five different occasions. Offers me half as much as required. Move next appointment back a month.’  
While part of you thought it was amusing how petty the grand inventor could be at times, the other part of you dreaded meeting this individual who he had spurned so many times.  
Collecting your clipboard, receipt, and coin purse, you hastily made you way to the waiting room to greet the soon-to-arrive guests. One improvement you had made to Jindosh’s system was your punctuality. No guest had to wait more than two minutes to meet with you and you were fairly quick to get them to purchase a clockwork. The only people who wanted Jindosh specifically were nobles, and these individuals were shadier than that. They were content with getting the deal done quickly and effectively.  
In truth, it felt a little criminal to sell to these people. You legally couldn’t ask what they needed a clockwork for or how they acquired the coin to pay for one or two at a time. So most nights, you looked the other way and simply did your job.  
After stepping out of your office, you pulled the lever and watched it rise upward. While you waited for the guest room to lock into place, you sifted through the paperwork on the clip board in search of the customer’s name.  
Before you could find it, you heard the sound of glass shattering, your head snapping up. The guestroom was full of men and women, six or seven, who were all standing except for one. This many guests were usually not to be expected. They had, seemingly, already made it through their rationed amount of alcohol and were getting a little rowdy by the time you got there, even though you were fairly on time.  
Their eyes turned to you, narrow slits as their body language turned menacing.  
You took a deep breath, trying not to think about how Kirin was in no physical shape to come to your aid in case of an emergency. “I apologize if you were kept waiting. I didn’t get the time on the schedule confused, did I, Mister . . . ?”  
The man seated slowly stands, his back still to you. He adjusts his jacket; you can safely assume he’s buttoning it and adjusting the cuffs. He’s tall and gangly, but his posture makes him intimidating.  
“Paolo,” he says. “Most just call me Paolo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you know how hard it is to refrain from writing the most intense sex scene for these two because??  
> It is very difficult.


	8. Chapter Eight

You shift back and forth on your heels, the clipboard gripped tightly against your side. He’s been like this for about five minutes, walking slow circles around one of the newest clockworks. By his scruffy outfit, it was hard to tell whether or not he was a serious buyer. You knew how much it cost—a decade’s worth of coin—and wondered if he could afford it.   
“Sir,” you speak for the first time since his waltz began, “If you’re interested in an immediate purchase, I’ll need to inform you on Mr. Jindosh’s requirements.”  
He responds, but it doesn’t correlate to your statement.   
“Kirin Jindosh has put me on hold for weeks. I was here near the end of the Month of Darkness and we had a bit of a disagreement. Didn’t we boys?”  
You straighten up a bit. His men are standing directly behind you, a little too-close-for comfort. “That’s right, boss.” They chime in variations.   
Paolo doesn’t stop to face you, but continues, “He’s not a very negotiable man; stubborn even when facing the rational answer. I offered him a good deal, told him the consequences of what would happen should he not lower his prices. But he was . . . unpersuadable.”   
Paolo inferring that Kirin Jindosh was anything but ‘rational’ was almost enough to make you scoff. “Yes, well,” you pull the clipboard up, pretending to examine the information on it, “Despite your disagreement, he still put you down for another appointment. So there’s that.”  
“Hm,” he ceases circling the clockwork, running a hand on the flat end of an arm blade. “But I’d wager he hasn’t lowered the price.”  
“Not to my knowledge, sir.”  
Paolo makes a series of ‘tsk’ sounds. “Must be nice, making your way up the chain of command.”  
You feel the blood drain from your face. “I’m sorry, what?”  
He laughs, low and gruff, “I’ve got ears, friend. I hear a lot of whispers. Especially in places like this. Now, let’s pretend like you aren’t on your knees every night—why did he appoint you to this position?”  
Your mouth opens and closes, your mind is turning. “Because . . . because I’m very well educated, sir,” you hiss between clenched teeth.   
He gives you a smile that doesn’t fit right on his face. “Look, I know people like Jindosh. No-bodies who lost it all and then got their chance at glory. I’ve only had the pleasure to meet him twice, we had a disagreement, I may have threatened him, and now he’s got someone new and fresh doing his job. What does that tell us?”  
Your lips are pressed into a thin line, your nails digging into the wooden clip board. Don’t say it. Don’t say it you bastard.   
“I’ll tell you. He’s using you. He’s got you in here, knowing that I’d be making my visit today, knowing how dangerous I am. He doesn’t care. Men like Jindosh see a world of obsessions and they use them how they like. He forced your employers to fire you, he made you his personal servant, he made you his assistant, and now you’re his lover. How much farther do you think this is going to go, friend, before he throws you away?”  
The need to hit him is strong, but he’s too far away and he has an entire posse behind you. Instead, you hold your chin high and say, “With all due respect sir, I don’t know you. And I don’t know why you’re so concerned about me. You almost sound like—,” your words fall short. You know exactly who he sounds like. The only person you’ve already known has been observing you.  
“The guardswoman,” you murmur, your breath unsteady. “The guardswoman said . . .”  
I’m saying he’s taking a liking to you. It’s not unusual for the grand inventor to be cruel to his servants, but from what I’ve heard, he’s not hurting you. He’s playing with you.  
He’s obsessed with you.  
I’m telling you to watch yourself around him.  
You feel yourself shaking ever so slightly. Paolo walks closer, lowering his voice. “I’ve had people at work in here before I even knew about you, friend. Now, you must know by now that I’ve never been interested in buying one of those clankers.” He gestures over his shoulder at the pristine new clockwork. “I prefer blood and spit over metal and oil. I came here to see if Jindosh was the type of man to be reasoned with and you know what I found? He’s a damned psychopath—,”  
“What are you really after, Mr. Paolo?” you glare at him, lowering the clipboard to your side so that you could level your shoulders. “Why are you doing this?”  
He wags a finger at you, “Now, that’s what I wanted to hear. It’s good to ask questions, friend. But I have a feeling you already know the answer, don’t you?”  
He backs away, pacing to the clockwork and then back to you. The loading dock is empty except for the Howlers, you, and the clockwork solider. There was nowhere to go.   
“I don’t know what you mean.”  
“Oh, you do. You’ve just not been paying attention. One of my friends here on the inside has told me you’ve met Breanna Ashworth. Is that true?”  
Your mind scatters. The cook.   
“They’ve been waiting on you, you should hurry now. About fifteen minutes, I believe,” he looked at you with a sense of pity.  
Paolo continues, “And I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with your employer recently; more than any of the other servants.”  
A ball of ice seems to form in your stomach. The four maids that came to you that day.   
“You’re just being careful, I see what you’re doing. If you want to tell us the truth somewhere that the machines can’t hear us, meet us on the first floor of the apartments tomorrow morning.”  
“Why are you doing this?” You whisper, ashamed to admit you were frightened by the man. “Why me?”  
He shrugs. “I can’t explain why Jindosh took a shine to you. Honestly, that was just lucky for us. We’ve been here for months trying to get information. Surely by now, you’ve put it together, right?”  
Once more, he stops in front of you, his dark eyes locked onto you. You feel like you can’t move. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
Paolo lets out a disappointed sigh. “Come now, you’ve got to know he’s working with the Duke and a Witch to overthrow Empress Emily Kaldwin.”  
You feel your grip on the clipboard go slack, the sound of it hitting the loading dock floor making you jump. “O-overthrow the empress . . . what the hell are you talking about?”  
“I thought you said you were well educated, friend! Or are you just too attached to him that you can’t see what he really is?”  
A series of thoughts pass through your mind; he had been hiding letters, building rapidly, promising an army. Were you just too stupid to see or were you just in love with him, refusing to think about it? Ashworth’s visits, the duke’s deadlines, whispers of the name “Delilah” and you never once sat down and tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together.   
“He—why would he do this? What is Delilah doing to him?” you stare into Paolo’s eyes, questioning and searching for an answer that would soothe you. It is not there.  
In fact, Paolo bursts out in a short laugh, his posse behind you chuckling with him. “She’s not doing anything to him. He’s doing it for himself. Men like him always have one thing in mind—their own desires. That’s why he’s kept you around, too, get it?”  
Your eyes drop and you stare at the floor, disbelief forcing you to be skeptical. This man was a low-life; a gang leader. He was probably just trying to get to you, to intimidate you. But . . . there was just too much evidence here that supported him. Too much, now, to turn a blind eye to.   
“. . . so what do you want from me?” you mutter, refusing to look back up.   
You watch as his scuffed shoes shuffle closer. He says, “I was born here, in Karnaca. I hate the way it’s gone to shit while we all sit on our hands. I want to change that, someday, but if the Empress is overthrown, who knows how that might affect things. I need to have my connections before things fall apart, you see? I’ve got eyes here, yea, but Jindosh hasn’t let anyone this close since we’ve known him. You’re the key to figuring out what’s going on with Delilah.”  
“You want me to spy on Mr. Jindosh, is that it?” You dare to look up. “Why would I do that?”  
Paolo regards you momentarily, trying to mentally sum you up. He nods, quietly, then lifts his hands in a shrug. “Good question. What do you want?”  
You glance behind you at the group of Howlers, shaking your head. Without a word, you bend down and pick up your clipboard, stand, and move past Paolo. “If you aren’t here for a purchase, then please leave. We’re done here and I have another client in fifteen minutes.”  
“Do you know what kind of man Kirin Jindosh is? The kind that will kill you in an instant when you outlive your uses. Now, I know you’re loyal and I know you’re almost as stubborn as he is, but I think we can all safely say that before he started showing interest in you, you saw what kind of man he was. You knew he was a damned monster. I’m not saying that we’re all perfect; I’ve done some questionable things, it’s true. But you’re really fooling yourself if you think he cares about you.”  
On your way to the elevator door, you pause. You can still feel his lips against yours if you close your eyes.   
“I know who he is. I know what he is. And yes, I knew all along. At the beginning, I hated him, I called him a monster, too.”  
You turn, giving the Howler’s the coldest possible look you could manage. Paolo’s face twitches.   
“But he’s just a man. And that’s why people hate him—it’s easier to just call him a monster rather than face the fact that he’s better than all of us. I won’t help you, sir. And before you say it again, I know he might be using me. I know he likely doesn’t really care for me like I care for him. And the strangest thing about all that? It doesn’t really bother me. I’d rather enjoy the time I have being used than betray him. Now, please, get the hell out of this house.”   
\--  
Your walk back to Kirin’s bedroom was slow. You felt drained after the Howler’s and had simply rescheduled the last appointment for tomorrow night. You had to see him.   
Everything Paolo had said about him was a lie except for one thing—you did believe him when he said Kirin was working for Delilah to overthrow the crown. It hurt you, horribly, to think about how blind you had been the entire time. All the signs were there that a coup was underway. Maybe you had just stopped seeing him as a villain altogether.   
You should feel something other than pain, like anger or sadness or hopelessness, but you could only feel the sting of shame at your own stupidity.   
The worst part about it? You still loved him. Now, you were worried about what might happen to him if he made powerful enemies.   
The door to his bedroom stands in front of you, the white-wood surface smooth against your fingertips. Hopefully he’d still be asleep. Pushing the doors open, you round the corner to find Kirin sitting on the edge of the bed, his chin in his hand as if he’s thinking. When you come into sight, he slowly straightens up and does what he’s best at—observes you.   
He doesn’t say a word, so you smile cautiously and say, “Ah, you’re awake. That’s good. Are you feeling any better—,”  
You pause. You can hear something. The static of the active intercoms.   
Turning to face one of them, you hear, “These things are always heavier than they look. Be careful with those whale tank bits. Don’t want an explosion down here.”  
It’s the loading dock. He’d been listening the whole time.   
“So it’s out in the open. I’m curious—what will you do now that you know what I’m involved in?” you face him, your lips in a thin line. He’s looking at you like he used to, back when you first met him—like you’re an object he’s studying. “Will you tell me how heinous this is? Or perhaps you’re here to beg me to stop my involvement with the Duke? Either way, I’m sure my response will disappoint you.”  
You don’t say anything back, choosing instead to cross the room to the circle table, putting back the contents of the medical kit that had been left out. Your back to him, you finally say, “How didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I figure it out?”  
“A fascinating question indeed, I think—,”  
“Here’s a better one: why don’t I hate you?”  
He falls silent, a bitter taste on his tongue.   
You continue packing up the bottles of disinfectant, “You said once that you took an interest in me because I hated you but began to care for you. Did you ever figure out why? Because I would like to know. I would like it to stop.”  
Kirin stares at the back of you, his mouth slightly ajar. He seems to have taken on the appearance of a child whose favorite toy has broken. “Wh . . . Wait—,”  
“I didn’t choose to be here. I didn’t want to spend a decade under your control. I didn’t want to be your personal house-maid. I didn’t want to become your secretary. But I did it anyway. And I began to enjoy every second of it. Why the hell—,”   
You feel your throat burn, your voice cracking. “I don’t care why you’re doing this. If you are truly using me, then I guess I’ll have to accept that. But it’s just not fair if you— if you take down the Empress and if you associate yourself with this Delilah person, then it’s not fair to me because I—and if you get yourself killed just to prove how damned smart you are, then be my guest. Just don’t keep me around long enough to see it, please.”  
It takes you a second to realize you’ve stopped putting the supplies up. Your hands are shaking and your eyes are tightly closed to keep you from crying at work yet again. After a pause where neither of you say anything, you let out a long breath and wipe at your eyes with the back of your sleeve. “This should stop. It went farther than it should have a long time ago. I’m obviously not capable of knowing who you really are, so . . . so we should just—,”  
You hear the sound of the floors creaking beneath his feet. Refusing to move, you wait until his hand touches your shoulder, then slides down your arm. He turns you around to face him.   
“I’ve been involved with the Duke and Delilah for almost three years now. Nothing you say or do will change my mind, you know that. Candidly, whatever is happening between us is taking up an extensive portion of my time. I’ve lost at least a month’s worth of progress because you’ve been . . . distracting me. You are, indisputably, the worst thing that could have happened—and if I had known that day, when I hired you, that I would be destroying weeks of work, then perhaps I would never have done it in the first place.” He says all this matter-of-factly, as if he’s merely stating the obvious.   
You clench your fists, that familiar Kirin-directed-anger filling you for the first time in a while. But before you can say anything, he carries on, “That being said, I know now that if I had the chance to start from the beginning, I’d make the same mistake every time. You’ve managed to immaculately destroy me and everything I thought I knew about myself, so much so that I won’t be able to go back to how I was before. I meant what I said, as I usually do, when I promised that after the business with the Duke was done, I’d be yours. In truth, I already am. But you need to understand me when I say that you mustn’t try to persuade me to stop the coup. I know what I’m doing—I live in a fortress, you know. Believe me when I say that one day, the empire will be run by an army of clockworks and we can sail to Gristol, Morely, or even to the Pandyssian Continent if you so desire. But first, I must do this. Then we can—,”  
You stop him with a hand on his chest, gentle and light. His brow furrows and his words slow to a halt. You whisper, “’Then we can be together’. Is that what you were going to say?”  
He looks very out of his element; Disgruntled, flustered, and even a bit flushed in the face after his rambling. His chest moves faster than usual, like he’s out of breath. And in reality, he was. When he had realized what you were about to say—what you were about to do—he had panicked in a way that he had never before. The last time he could recall being so alarmed and frightened was when his Mother had struck him across the face after he’d been caught snapping the necks of swallows. They had seemed so fragile in his hands back then. This felt oddly similar.   
You let your hand fall until its back at your side. “I don’t want to play any more games. When you hired me, that was a game. When you gave me special access to certain parts of the house, when you let me into your office, that was a game. When you kissed me, when you told me that we would be something after all of this was over, that was just a game too, wasn’t it?”  
He shakes his head, “Don’t be ridiculous, of course it wasn’t. Well, perchance it was at first. But I’m afraid that the rest of it was just my poor excuse for wooing you.”  
“Then call off the deal,” you say, your voice steady. You needed to do this.   
He narrows his eyes, thinking, before coming up with a conclusion. “Ah, alright. We don’t have to wait until I’ve made the Duke’s army if that’s what you are referring to.”  
“No, I mean fire me. Call off the deal and tell me I no longer owe you a decade’s worth of service.”  
His face seems to twist with several different emotions all at once until it eventually settles into a blank state of dull frustration. His lips move, as if he’s trying to say words, but they don’t appear yet again. It was his running hypothesis that he only lost his train of thought while in your presence. You scarcely even noticed it.   
You tilt head, “If you’re still upset about what I did to you, then you can punish me any other way you see fit. But this entire situation has been absurd from the start. I’m tired—,”  
“Stop,” he says abruptly, shaking himself out of a stupor, “No, no, stop. This isn’t—what are you doing? I’m not going to fire you. I want you here. I want—,”  
You interrupt him, shouting, “Then stop with the games! Stop toying with me and using me! If you want me, then say so you selfish bastard!”  
His eyes twitch and he retorts with growing rage, “You think it’s that easy? You think I’m ‘playing games’ with you because it’s fun and I have that kind of time? Where did I ever get the idea that you were smarter than the rest? You little fool, I’m not playing games with you I’m keeping you safe! If Delilah Copperspoon knew you were here—if she knew you were distracting me and stalling her plans—she’d waste no time coming to kill you! And I know she could; her power is beyond this world. Not I, this house, nor even the clockworks would be able to stand in her way! And I refuse to let that happen! I’ve been studying the source of her power and there’s no rational, tangible way to defend against it. If I could have you now without risking your life, then believe me, I would take you right here. But, if I do, then this situation escalates and Delilah might discover us. I apologize, but I’ve already put your life in danger the moment I let you distract me, which was day one.” His voice shakes with anger, his grip on your forearm tight. He’s practically towering over you with his height, compelling you to support yourself against the table.   
You don’t say anything to him. His words have stunned you into a state of shock as you hastily try to decide whether or not you want to leave the mansion for good or stay right where you are. You were really leaning toward the latter as you listened to him and began to understand what he had been doing behind the scenes. He had lied to you, or at least, he had kept the truth away from you. But it had been to pace himself and keep you out of Delilah’s sights. If he was telling the truth, which you believed he was, then he had been taking care of you since the beginning. Maybe that was why it had been so hard to see what he was a part of; he was trying deliberately to keep you away from it.   
“You don’t have to apologize. I just thought . . . Paolo said some very convincing things.” Your own voice sounds foreign to you; so soft and careful.  
His jaw is tight with anger, but he closes his eyes to calm himself. “Yes, he’s like that. If I hadn’t have been ill, I would have recalled his visit and done the business myself. He’s smarter than he looks, I’m afraid. Yet, I must say I am impressed that you didn’t allow him to deceive you. He has nothing to offer you but threats and whispers.”  
His grip lets go and now he’s just standing in front of you, both arms to his side, mirroring you.   
Blinking away watery eyes, you cast your gaze to the side. “I’m beginning to realize that, yes.”  
He stares at you for a pause, his dark eyes going up and down your face until he notices you’ve caught your breath. “You stayed loyal.”  
“Of course I did,” You clear your throat, a meek smile on your lips, “He really didn’t tell me a whole lot I didn’t already know.”  
Jindosh raises an eyebrow and responds coyly, “Which was the truth? Him calling me a monster or him calling me selfish? I’m not sure myself, really.”  
You laugh, but it’s hollow and exhausted. “Neither, surprisingly.” He catches the way your voice sounds and does the math in his head, searching for the part of Paolo’s speech that might have hurt you the most. He’s very bad at this sort of thing; Kirin never really got the hang of understanding what offended people. But as he overlapped your words from earlier with Paolo’s, it became clear what had stayed with you.   
Kirin’s eyes soften, “Would it make you feel better if I was sincere for once? Because I can promise you that it is no longer my intention to use you.”  
You look up at him and his breath catches in his throat when he sees the brimming tears in your eyes. The realization of what he had been doing to you suddenly falls upon his shoulders. He feels what he assumes to be the sting of a guilty conscious, it’s been so long since he’s known it’s burn. In his mind, it had been perfectly acceptable to “play games” with you as long as you never found out or never brought it up. He had no moral instinct that told him otherwise. To him, he was simply biding time until the coup so that he could still attempt to be flirtatious and toy with the idea of something more. It had never once occurred to him how outlandish the entire situation was or that he might actually have to answer to his mistakes when you fell in love with him and wanted more. He tries to search the inner parts of his mind, but he can’t seem to recall if he ever envisioned this working out at all.   
So, now that he saw the real-life repercussions for his childishness, he felt guilt.   
You, on the other hand, found yourself very confused with how you felt. Paolo’s words had only ignited the spark of doubt that had already been growing inside of you. Since Henry’s death, you never let go of the fact that Kirin Jindosh was—essentially—a bad man. You had grown so affectionate toward the side of him that he chose to show you that you inevitably had ended up defending him in your own heart, trying to justify why you, a good person, felt this way about him, a bad person. And now, as he stands before you, speaking honestly for perhaps the first time since you’d known him, you understood something that had been baffling you since the beginning.  
He was a monster. He was a bad man, a villain even. He was cold and calculating and cruel. This was simply who Kirin Jindosh was. And you knew now that you loved him anyway.   
“Kirin,” you begin to say, watching as the cogs of his mind start to turn again, attentive. “Earlier, I said that if you let me take care of you tonight, I’d stand by and you could do whatever you wanted. Well, my shift ends in two hours, so our deal isn’t done yet.”  
His head tilts to the right ever so slightly, his brow knitting together. “I thought you said no more games?”  
“This is our last one,” you promised, stepping closer to him until you could hear his breath hitch, “I want you to have me, Mr. Jindosh.”  
His outward composure was surprisingly well maintained given that on the inside, his brain was buzzing. He could scarcely recall the last time he’d bedded someone. It must have been months ago, drunkenly, at one of Luca’s galas that he had been forced to go to. He couldn’t even remember their name. And before that, his sexual encounters had been flippant little meetings in abandoned Serkonan buildings from men and women who had tried to seduce him for his engineering services. Sometimes it had worked, too, depending on how much he had had to drink that night. And at the academy? He’d been too busy—and too hated—to find anyone there. As he thought about it, he realized he had never intimately been with someone when he wasn’t intoxicated or under obligation.   
Certainly never with someone who seemed to give a damn about him.   
You blink up at him and notice a faint rosy hue to his cheeks as he tries to think of the most appropriate thing to say. It occurred to you then that perhaps you had pressured him into a compromising position, so you hastily said, “I-If you would rather we didn’t, I understand. I shouldn’t have made it sound like you were required to—,”  
You were in the process of stepping away from him, to put some space between you, when you feel a pressure on the small of your back. He pulls you against him hard, making you gasp as your chest hits his. He’s still wearing his night-clothes which are considerably thinner than his usual garb. “You seem to have forgotten who is employed by whom.” He drawls, turning on his heel like a dance, bring you with him until the bend of your knees brush up against the end of his mattress, “You couldn’t make me do anything I didn’t already want to do.”  
This kind of banter is different; it’s intense and inherently sexual. He takes your chin between his prosthetic index and thumb, tilting your face up so that he could kiss you. And when he does, it’s not as delicate or tender as the other two have been. His lips are soft and he seems to have reflected on his past experiences as he appears to be somewhat proficient at this.   
Everything between the two of you up until this moment had been very restrained and relatively reserved. Even earlier today, you had managed to stop yourself. But now, you could smell his cologne and feel his hands tugging at the hem of your shirt where it was tucked into your trousers. His knee comes forward and nestles between your thighs, nudging them open. Once he has them apart, he lowers the two of you back onto the mattress and leans back to look at you.   
The tactics he used here had been learned long ago and he knew they were the most effective in such an endeavor. Nevertheless, he felt now felt something different that had not been present during every time he’d drunkenly fucked courtesans. He felt a sense of . . . urgency that numbed his rational thinking process.  
Your hands went to his neck, pulling him down to kiss you again. With caution, you slipped your tongue into his mouth, eliciting a moan from the inventor above you. It pleased you greatly. He instantly cursed at himself for the indecency before letting his own hands remove rest of your blouse from your trousers. Before he attempted to remove the shirt entirely, his large hands splayed across your stomach, reveling in how soft and warm you felt before sliding upward, just barely brushing against the fabric of your brassiere.   
You felt goose bumps rise on your skin as his grasp moved to the clasp near the front and effortlessly unhooked it. You couldn’t tell if that skill was honed from past experiences or years of working with his hands. The thought of what was about to happen made you weak; you had only ever dreamed of Kirin touching you like this and now—  
A sharp gasp left you before you could conceal it; his lips dipped down into your neck, the heat of his breath on your skin while his hands made themselves busy with your breasts. Your legs are spreading on their own, it would seem, and you can hardly decide what you want to do with your hands—though you ultimately decided to slide them under his evening shirt and let them roam the smooth skin on his back, lightly dragging your nails. With every move, you could feel his muscles straining and shifting.   
He slides down so that he’s able to push your shirt up over your head and then lets you bother with the rest of your upper clothing while he puts his attention lower, deft fingers popping open the golden buttons of your cotton trousers. How long had it been since you’d had a man undressing you? Too long, surely. While you were aroused, you were also a little out of practice, so you began to feel a twinge of insecurity. Heat flooded your face and you timidly attempted to cover yourself. As per usual, he noticed everything, pausing in his endeavors to say, breathlessly, “Now now, none of that.”  
He refused to continue until you withdrew your hands, feeling his eyes roam down your chest. He hadn’t taken a moment to really savor the details, but he made sure to do so now, leaving your breeches to slide back up, pulling you into another kiss. You let out a small whine as one of his thumbs brush against a hardened nipple, giving it a light squeeze whenever he got a reaction out of you. If you didn’t make an interesting noise, he tried a different approach, which was leaning down to take your breast into his mouth. Ah, he promised no more games, but he really did enjoy testing you—flicking his tongue back and forth, a smile creeping despite his best efforts. It was almost obvious at this point that he was, in a way, experimenting with you to see what would get the best reaction.   
This was his first time bedding someone while he was completely sober, head-injury or not. He was hyper-aware of the situation, which meant one thing: multitasking.  
While he switched breasts, his free hand continued to work on your trousers, tugging them down until they were half-way off your thighs. You hastily managed to kick them off, though the sensation of his tongue on some of the most sensitive parts of your body was almost overwhelming. Every time he grazed his teeth against the delicate skin, your hips uncontrollably bucked up against his mid-section. Regardless of how he tried to control himself, the way you were grinding against him sent him into a frenzy. Once your trousers were off, he moved down to settle between your thighs, fully intent on doing whatever it took to get more sounds out of you.   
You hold back a moan as you feel him do away with your underwear, slipping them down your thighs, past the bend of your knees, and then to your ankles. You were completely naked now while Jindosh hadn’t even removed a single article of clothing; you were just about to protest this when you felt his tongue slide into you without hesitation or warning. “Kirin!” you yelped, reaching down to take a handful of his soft hair, pushing him into you harder. He chuckles and the low contralto of his voice sends vibrations through you. All those weeks where you had dreamed of finding a way to silence him have amounted to this moment in time where his tongue is busy doing something good for a change. He goes right to work, testing the different ways to make you squirm. Despite having only done this once—or twice, perhaps, but always intoxicated—he finds that he has a sort of talent for it judging by the moans you have to stifle. You try hard to keep the noise down, unsure of whether or not guards are patrolling tonight. But the heat and the pleasure from between your legs was beginning to become too much. You had had sex before, yes, but it had only been fleeting and quick. No one had ever done this to you the way that he was—ah! You feel your back arch against your will as he tries something new, his name a whisper on your lips. You’re hardly aware that you’ve said his name at all, but to him, it’s as if you shouted it.   
He prepares to speed up, anticipates with great expectation the climax he’s about to push you into, but he is stopped by a hand on his shoulder. You’ve sat up, naked, almost seeming to glow in the lamp-light. He can only stare at you in a sort of dazed way—his mind is not equipped to appreciate aesthetic beauty, but other parts of him were.   
“Before you get too carried away, you’re going to have to let me have some fun too, you know,” you smile down at him, looking positively radiant for this split second. He feels something deeper than affection, something richer than sex appeal. He’s almost afraid to put a name to it.   
Kirin lets you guide him up the bed and onto his back where you straddle him. From there, you can begin to unbutton his shirt. Your little hands are so enticing to watch and he’s almost captivated with every move you make. He thinks to himself: Outsider’s breath, man, don’t get sentimental now. Not now, of all times.   
His eyes roam up to yours. You’re not looking back; you’re focused on undressing him. But if you were to meet his gaze, you’d see evidence that Paolo had been wrong. Jindosh did care about you.   
After you’ve successfully unbuttoned his night-shirt, you motion for him to shimmy out of it, staring unabashedly at his half-naked form below you. He wasn’t muscular like a guardsmen, but he had more of a hardened figure than you would have anticipated. Especially for someone who barely saw sunlight.   
As he returns to settle on his back, you reach out and lightly drag your finger tips down his torso, marveling at how he looked and felt. It was almost funny, in a way, because you had seen him earlier that day in only a towel, but the context had changed and you were able to appreciate it now. And that’s exactly what you did.   
You found it charming that he was staring at you patiently, his eyes half-lidded, his lips slightly parted as he watched you. You couldn’t help yourself, leaning down to kiss him first on the cheek, then on the bandaged temple, then on his soft lips. It was tender at first, forgiving and kind. Then you began to move your hips, a reminder that you were still straddling him. The heat between your legs spread onto his growing erection as you continued to grind against him, your lips still on his. At one point, you break away to let him breath, only to lightly bite his bottom lip. The little mewling sound he made you laugh.   
You take notice of something hard poking against your sex and decide that it’s time to move on to the next step.   
He’s in a sort of trance from the kiss and the grinding and only notices you’ve moved as his trousers are pulled down to his knees. He lets out a hiss through clenched teeth as you take his erection in your soft little hands, situating yourself so that you’re lying on your stomach, propped up above him. He stares at you, a smirk spreading on his smug face. “Ah, my dear secretary. Now you won’t be able to deny all those rumors.”   
To his amusement, you return the expression, something playful glinting in your eyes. “They’re saying all sorts of things, Mr. Jindosh. To which are you referring?”   
Before he can respond with a witty quip, you take him into your mouth, which causes him to curse loudly, followed by a deep sigh of approval. You had a little more expertise in this area, no matter how refined your life had been the last few years. Tactfully, you bob your head up and down, moving your tongue in steady circles as you go. He begins to mutter something under his breath as you work, his words mangled and throaty, mixed with groans of gratification.   
You don’t want to push him too far, though. He still had work to do.   
Without warning, you stop and shift positions, moving to straddle him again. The look in his eyes has changed from ‘moderately enamored’ to ‘completely aroused’; his breathing is a little less controlled and his hands aimlessly come to land on your things, squeezing and petting while he watches you move.   
Before you continue, you give him a weary look. You loved this man very much. You only hoped he felt even a fraction of that for you. It finally occurs to him that you’re hesitating, so he forces himself to snap out of his stupor.   
“Is something wrong, love?” He asked, attempting to push himself up onto his hands. You smile at him, reaffirmed, and gently push him back to the pillows.   
“Nothing at all.”  
You reach beneath you and position yourself above him, leading the tip of his erection to your heat. He holds his breath, tries to memorize everything around him; the way you look, the way you feel against him, the way you move. He commits it all to memory.   
You let out one shaky breath before you lower yourself, dropping down until you feel him settle all the way in. You had forgotten what it felt like to have a man’s shaft inside of you, but the sensation was unique this time. It was someone you had wanted for a long time.   
Kirin, meanwhile, had tilted his head back. His eyes were closed, his head spinning briefly before he felt you move, your hips twirling to try and get used to the shape and size of him. By the time you were comfortable, he had recollected his train of thought and had just begun to recover when you lifted back up and dropped yourself again.  
He curses again, bucking his hips up to go even deeper inside of you. The sporadic action makes you gasp, your thighs beginning to tremble already. Kirin lets you move up and down, up and down, up and down, before he begins to lose patience with the pace.   
You’re surprised when his hands grip your soft hips, squeezing hard enough to leave mild bruises, and pull you down faster to achieve a quicker tempo. The way your breasts bounce with every thrust seems to mesmerize him, briefly, before he focuses again on the task at hand.   
“Tell me,” he begins, his breath baited, “How long have you wanted this?”  
You had refrained from being embarrassed up until this point, but his words had made you blush all over again.   
It’s hard to talk with his cock moving so quickly inside of you, but you manage to respond, “D-don’t ask questions like that—! Not while. . . not while I’m—!”  
You hear him make a ‘tsk’ sound before everything changes in a blur. Once second, you were above him. The next, you found yourself on your back with the grand inventor over you. He has both of your wrists in one hand, pinned safely above your head. He situates himself between your legs, lining himself back up to your lower lips before thrusting inside again. You cry out in surprise, the first indication of a climax beginning to knot in your lower abdomen.   
“Since when?” he continues, dipping his head into the crook of your neck, “Since the promotion? Or perhaps—perhaps even before that?” His voice is almost a growl as he slams into you, so, so fast. The pace is primitive and erratic, simply chasing the orgasm. He releases your wrists and you run your nails up his back, receiving a deep groan in response.   
“Tell me, my dear,” he murmurs into your ear, “Tell me what I want to hear.”  
You whimper, your mind becoming a haze as you get closer and closer. You’re beginning to lose all sense of control, no longer attempting to stifle your sounds. He shifts upward, changing his angle, and it’s over. Kirin doesn’t slow down at all as you climax beneath him, crying out in satisfaction, your hands threading through his soft hair. Even after you settle back down, exhausted, he doesn’t relent.  
He’s waiting for an answer.  
You turn your head, slightly, just so that your lips press against his ear. You whisper what he wants to hear, just quiet enough that he would be the only person who would catch it.   
It pushes him right over the edge. You feel him tense above you, hear him let out a string of curse words before he pulls out, finishing on your thighs and stomach.  
And just like that, it was over. He practically collapses beside you, the two of you absolutely spent. The sheets are damp with sweat and the temperature of the room is much warmer than it was prior to the deed. You close your eyes, listening to the sound of your employer breathing steadily beside you.   
“See?” you started, a small smile on your face, “Delilah didn’t come barging in. I think we’re safe for now, wouldn’t you agree?”  
He scoffs, then chuckles, then laughs jovially. “Alright, alright. You’ve made your point. Thoroughly.”   
“Didn’t think I’d go that far to win an argument, hm?”  
He leans up, raising a suspicious eyebrow at you, which only makes you laugh.   
“Well, then,” he says, watching you snicker, “I’m not accustomed to losing squabbles, but if this is my appeasement, then I might be able to let you win an altercation every now and again.”  
“Let me win? Oh really?”  
He grins, lifting a hand to push away the hair that had fallen in front of your face. “Who here is the natural philosopher and who is the maid—er, secretary? Concubine?”  
You swat at his arm, giving him a sour look. “Watch yourself, Mr. Jindosh.”  
He rolls over onto his back, shoulder-to-shoulder with you. You break the contact to move closer, nuzzling yourself against him.   
He looks down at you curiously. “What was it you said earlier? About having a lot of work to do tonight?”  
“I seem to remember you giving me the day off.”  
He chuckles, pulling the blankets up to cover the two of you. “I suppose I did, didn’t I?”  
Things are quiet for a moment. He thoughtlessly plays with your hair, obviously thinking about other things outside of this room the two of you were sharing. You traced circles on his chest. It made you a little sad, really, that all of this would be over in just a short amount of time. You’d have to go back to your office and pretend like it never happened so that this Delilah person never found out about you. Kirin would have to do his bury himself in his work again and you probably wouldn’t see him until the Duke’s dinner visit next week. Ultimately, there wouldn’t be another moment like this until Delilah sat on the throne and the clockworks were perfected. Who knows how long that could take?   
“Would you mind saying it again?” he interrupts the silence, shaking you out of your daydreams.   
“Say what again?”  
“What I wanted to hear, of course.” He says this matter-of-factly, but there’s a vulnerability to his voice that wasn’t there before. You realize what he means, a soft smile on your lips.   
“I love you, Kirin.”  
He commits it to memory, forgetting the pain of his childhood and the hundreds of people over the years who have told him otherwise. Then he drifts into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this took a lot longer to write than necessary. I had wanted to write a scene like this since chapter two but I never actually sat down and thought about how it would happen? So I re-did this three times.   
> Sorry for the wait! Merry Christmas!! :D


	9. Chapter Nine

The duke was coming to dinner tonight. You were thankful not to be a maid on a day like this; so many flushed faces ran about, desperately preparing for the day’s events. No one had a day off today—they were all on the clock. Not just the maids, but the cooks and guards as well. Polished clockwork soldiers were stationed about the house, more than normal. In fact, it appeared that Jindosh had brought out all of the clockworks to put on display for the duke, if only on the first floor and in the gallery. You counted them as you made your way across the waxed wooden floor, making your way to the inventor who was shouting instructions at his loading crew, a familiar vein visible on his temple.   
“If you so much as get a fingerprint on—watch the blades, will you? I can’t afford to have to waste time cleaning up your mess if you amputate your—,” he noticed you then, an eyebrow perking up. “Do you have what I asked you to bring me today?”  
You reach into your leather satchel you had recently acquired—your monthly rent had mysteriously been paid without you knowing, so you had the extra funds to splurge. You used most of it to buy yourself a new outfit yesterday for the Duke’s arrival while you had the day off. You also discovered a hefty bonus transferred to your account. For all the talk he had made about pay raises, you somehow hadn’t really expected to see it happen. He had not really been paying you since you’d started working for him—the arrangement was that all the money you would have earned as a maid would go toward paying off your debt with him. He had only been giving you enough to pay for your living quarters. Now, it seemed that wouldn’t be an issue any longer.   
“Right here,” you hand him a thick envelope full of all his financial and business documents. His check book had been balanced and you had kept record of every receipt even pre-dating the moment you became his assistant. Everything was in order. You may not have been a mathematician, but you had stayed up for nights organizing and checking your results over and over. You were quite confident in what you had just given him. “Everything should be in order. I’ve gone ahead and calculated the next month’s expenditures in case Duke Abele asks. Though I’m sure you could’ve done that on your own in seconds if he had asked you. Regardless, it’s there.”  
“Very well,” he opens the front of the folder and merely thumbs through your hard work. You’d be hurt if you couldn’t see the beads of sweat forming on his brow. Was he nervous to have the Duke come to dinner? Hadn’t they known each other for a while now? “I’d like to speak with you privately about some delicate matters before the dawn; I’m afraid you won’t see much of me until later this evening. I’ve got too much work to do and too many fools who need my constant supervision.” He glowered at the loading crew who had just begun to pack up their equipment. “Follow me.”  
He leads you through the glass doors to his laboratory. You feel your chest swell; he hadn’t taken you down here before. Now was not the time to mention this to him, however. He was a tightly wound coil ready to break.   
Kirin lowers the walkway lever and the two of you start your walk toward the lab. His back is to you, his arms crossed behind him as he leads in at a brisk pace, “As you know, Duke Abele will be here at 3:00pm, sharp. I’d been fairly prepared for his arrival for days; really, I just needed to adjust a few clockwork designs, perfect their “loose screws”, if you will. But he sent word ahead last night—you weren’t here and I deliberated whether or not I should seek you out at your home to tell you—that he isn’t coming alone.”  
You know instantly what he means. “Delilah’s coming?” you whisper, speeding up to walk alongside him. You search his gaze, but he’s looking at the ground, lost in rapid contemplation.   
“Yes,” he says simply, “She’ll be staying for three days—they both will. I’ve not prepared for this, I had no idea that I’d had her in my home for more than a few hours.” He looks irritated, briefly, then mildly unnerved. But hastily, he shakes it away and leads you into the lab.   
Kirin instantly goes to his work benches which were scattered with scribbled notes and tools. You spend just a moment to look around, staying on the outskirts of the workspace. While you were invited to share the experience, you somehow knew that stepping into the lab itself was a boundary he would never allow you to cross.   
Jindosh took a seat at one of his work tables and called out to you, “I’ll quickly review these to make sure you didn’t make some sort of atrocious error.” He was only half joking. “Then I’ll be able to discuss the matter at hand—if corrections aren’t required.”  
You don’t respond. You’ve noticed something as you made your way around the edges of the laboratory. It was peculiar looking—a simple leather chair with some sort of head-piece mounted above it. Thick, protected wires ran down over the back of it and toward a large metal coil that looked only half-complete.  
You reached out and ran your hand over the chairs arm-rest, only to hear Kirin shout, “Get away from that!”   
His voice was booming, and you had never seen him walk so quickly, snatching you by your wrist and wheeling you away from the device. “What were you thinking?” he hissed between clenched teeth, “Perhaps it would be better for you to assume that everything in this room can kill you or maim you. Would that teach you some caution?”  
His irritable behavior was beginning to bother you as you absentmindedly rubbed at your bruised wrist. “Kirin I barely touched it. What’s gotten you so much more paranoid than usual? What’s wrong with Delilah coming here for a few days? I can be careful; I’ll be strictly business—,”  
“It’s not that simple,” his shoulders relax briefly, his brow knitting as he stares at you. “Delilah comes with . . . company.” The word must have tasted sour to him, given the face he made. “Surely you’ve seen those pieces of alley trash that skulk around Breanna.”   
You mimic his facial expression. Yes, you remembered those women who had greeted you all those days ago on the front steps of the mansion. “What about them?”  
“They’re worse than spies,” he grumbles, turning away from you and returning to his worktable that he had been stationed at. You follow him, still keeping to the edges of the laboratory. “No matter how diligently I’ve attempted to study the void, I can’t understand it. Not yet. So, as it stands, her minions baffle me; they have abilities beyond rational understanding. And since I cannot measure their capabilities, I cannot with certainty say that they wouldn’t find something to report back to Delilah about.” Then, under his breath, you heard him say, “It was bad enough back when the only thing I had to worry about was their trickery setting off clockworks. If only I had had the time to finish that device.”  
“So what are you suggesting?” you asked, “That I just stay at home for the next three days?”  
“Yes,” he looks up at you, a spark of relief, “Oh, delightful. You understand.”  
Your facial expression must have said otherwise.   
He ignored it anyway, going back to reviewing your work. “Surprisingly, no obvious errors. Now you can leave and I can get some work done in peace.”  
Kirin tucks the folder away and rounds the worktable, extending his arms and placing them on both of your shoulders. “Besides, I’m sure you just can’t wait to spend a few days away from me. I’ve heard I’m quite the sadistic bastard.”  
You offer him a weak smile. He raises an eyebrow. “Come now, don’t give me look. This is for the best. Surely you can understand that. I’d much rather go a few days without your company than have Delilah find out that we’ve been—well, I digress.”   
Despite his rational, you couldn’t help but feel a little sick to your stomach—sick that he had to take such precautions in the first place, sick that Delilah’s witches were such a formidable threat, sick that he was still involved in all of this.  
“I understand,” you lie, giving him your best attempt at a smile. While Kirin was rubbish with empathy and the feelings of others, he was rather susceptive and easily saw through you.   
He merely stares for a second before hesitantly leaning in, pressing a kiss to your forehead. It’s brief and seems a little forced; he’s not just paranoid, either. Ever since that night that you’d spent together, he had seemed . . . different. Distant.   
But that had been the unspoken arrangement. You couldn’t afford to be involved with him while he was under Delilah’s command.   
“Don’t look so distraught,” he says coyly, putting on airs to distract you, “You’ll put a damper on things.”  
You let him guide you toward the walkway. You look down to the waterfall below, keeping your distance. “Why is she coming? Did he say?”  
Kirin’s smirk fell a little, “Hm. Luca didn’t say. And I never expected him to. Delilah . . . does as she wishes. She’s exhilarating in that way. I’m not shocked that Luca devoted himself to her like this. Personally? I have little in common with her; our partnership will never extend past formalities. And I’m sure she feels the same way. But to answer your question, I can’t begin to fathom why she’s here. Or what she wants.”  
You process this, nearing the glass doors. “You’ll send word to me when it’s safe to return, yes?”  
He pauses, his hand on the mosaic-glass door handle. The warm glow of the gallery stood just beyond. “Of course. Now I’d appreciate it if you’d drop the subject—with these precautions, there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll escort you to the front door, and there we will go our separate ways.”  
Jindosh opens the glass door with gusto, holding it open for you to go through first. You’re gaze is cast to the floor in thought as you begin to step through the threshold, only to hear him draw a quick breath.   
You turn to look at him, wondering what had bothered him all of a sudden. His thin face is pale, his dark eyes cast forward, unmoving.   
And as you turn to see what’s caught his attention, you understand.   
Duke Luca Abele was facing the two of you, his hands clasped behind his back. His uniform is white, crisp, and stiff looking. His greasy hair is smoothened over his head, his face flushed with the heat from the furnaces. Despite the fact that the Duke was right in front of you, the only royalty you had ever seen with your own eyes, he was not the focal point of your attention.  
Standing next to him was a woman with her back to you. Her form was slender and tall, her shoulders broad and her legs thin. She was dressed in shining black, her collar lined with thorns and feathers. Her hair was a soft black, short, and styled. She was observing a clockwork—the newest model—and had her chin resting against her hand in thought.   
Luca speaks, his voice familiar to you as the you’d heard it over the intercoms time and time again. “Ah, Jindosh! My friend, my colleague, it has been too long since our last encounter! Delilah and I were just observing your famed creation. I see you’ve made quite a few adjustments to its design since the last time we met! Wouldn’t you agree, my empress?”  
Neither you nor Kirin move as the woman cranes her neck, one steely eye cutting across the distance as she spots you. You feel like you’re under some sort of spell.   
“Adjustments to design, yes,” she said. Her voice was so cold, but it sounded like silk felt. “But I’m more interested in mass production, Jindosh. How many have you made since we last saw one another?”  
Kirin puts on a relaxed smile, throwing his hands up before taking slow strides across the room. Theatrical, almost.   
“Your imperial majesty,” he begins, “You’re looking well. I’m glad to see that your eye for detail and your ambition hasn’t softened one bit. Some of the clockworks I have kept here in the mansion. These aren’t for sale and they are the most perfected out of the entire collection. Then I’ve sold several to nobility. Those who can’t pay more than the bare minimum get my scraps, while those who can pay top dollar get to take an advanced clockwork home with them. In total, the set consists of 45 clockworks.”  
Luca nods along to Kirin’s words, but it is clear to you that he’s not listening to logistics. His gaze shifts about the room, to the ceiling, to the wall of light, to you—up and down your frame. You hold back a repulsed shudder.   
As Kirin continues about the distribution of the clockworks and his current progressions, you decide to silently make a right through the wall of light. This would be a safe escape; you’d been given access some time ago and it was probably your best bet to slip away while they were preoccupied.   
Just as the lights turned green and you drew close enough to feel the hairs on your arms stick up, you heard footsteps overlapping your own and glanced over to see the Duke making his way across the room to you.   
You couldn’t just keep walking. You had to stop.   
Kirin took notice of this. He was still preoccupied with Delilah, whose gaze had released him. You could hear it in the hitch of his voice, the subtle trip in his elegant repose.   
As Duke Abele reached you, you did the first thing that came to your mind and curtsied low, like you had been taught to do as a maid. He chuckles a little and waits for you to stand up straight before saying, “You aren’t dressed like a servant. And I’ve not seen your face here before. Are you a buyer of one of the clockworks?”  
Once, yes, you had been. Your memory flashes back to that day: the carriage ride, Henry, the red tinge to Jindosh’s face when you’d struck him. For some reason, you were very tempted to say yes.   
“No, sir, I’m not. I only stopped by to drop off some paperwork; I apologize for having intruded upon your visit.”  
He clasps his hands together and tilts his head back. “I saw that you came out of the Laboratory with him,” he began, a casual tone to his voice. Kirin had stopped mid-sentence across the room and was now attempting to listen to your answer and continue his own conversation. “I’ve been badgering him for months to let me take a look in there and he’s flat out refused me every time! How did you manage to persuade him?”  
Your jaw opens, but not sound comes out. White, hot panic flashes in your mind and you can’t seem to think straight. Your eyes flit across the room and you find that Kirin is already staring, urging you silently to get a hold of yourself.   
“I—attended the Academy of Natural Philosophy with Kirin. We’re old colleagues.”  
That . . . was not the best thing to say.   
Kirin let out a sound that could only be described as a muted laugh or a muffled shriek of terror. He coughed to play it off like it had been a catch in his throat, but you could see his fingers strumming against the side of his leg.  
“A colleague you say? A peer of his? I never knew you had any acquaintances from the Academy, Kirin!” here, he leans in a little, mirth in his eyes, and whispers loud enough for everyone to hear, “And can you blame me for thinking so?”   
He began to chortle to himself and you followed suit, attempting to defuse the tension within yourself.   
Kirin, exasperated, turns away from Delilah and retorts, “Wouldn’t you rather come listen to my progress report, Luca? My—,” here, he glowers at you then rolls his eyes, “—old classmate was just leaving. After all, we’ve got more important things to discuss. Since you’re here so early, I’ll take you by the assessment chamber first so that you can see—,”  
“Nonsense!” Luca exclaims, “We’ve got three days to talk about business matters. If this colleague of yours sailed all the way here from—Dunwall I’m guessing—then you should offer to let her stay in your home, Kirin. I never listened to my father very much, but I’ve inherited his hospitality. Besides,” he looks to you and smirks. You can’t tell if he knows more than he’s letting on or if he really is just being eccentric. “I’ve so many questions about the Academy that Jindosh won’t answer. He’s so temperamental about the subject.”   
You don’t know what to say. If the Duke of Serkonos insists that you stay for dinner, then you must say yes. Truthfully, you felt as though he wanted your company in more ways than one, especially with how he kept glancing to Delilah who promptly paid him no attention. He looked positively deprived.   
One final time, you pleadingly looked to Kirin for assistance. His face was turned, his eyes closed, his face a picture of bitter defeat and agitation.   
“If your majesty would have me stay for dinner, I’d be more than grateful. Though, I don’t wish to impede upon your business,” you bow your head to him.   
“Excellent!” he shouts, clapping his hands together triumphantly before him. “Delilah, my Empress. Aren’t you parched after our long journey? Let’s spend the day drinking into a stupor before we get started, shall we?”  
The room fell silent. Luca Abele was certainly childish, if nothing else. Between his nonchalant attitude about matters pertaining to a damned coup and his frequent permission requests to Delilah, it was hard to see him as a true Duke.   
Next to Kirin, Delilah’s brow twitches in slight irritation. She sends Luca an icy stare before sighing and placing her face into her palm. “I suppose it has been a tiresome journey. Take us to your smoking room, Kirin. We can discuss these matters later once we have some privacy. Until then, I’d kill for a class of Morley wine.”  
\--  
Two hours later, you find yourself seated next to a fireplace, a glass of Dunwall Whiskey cupped in your hands and a faint sway to the room. You had insisted upon only having one glass, but every time Luca had a new question about the Academy of Natural Philosophy—which, Outsider’s crooked cock, you knew nothing about—he’d pour you a new one.   
As to your current predicament, you had never improvised something so diligently in your entire life. Once, you’d accidently found a rip on the arse of your trousers while serving the Armstrong family during a party. You had artfully maneuvered your way out of crowded spaces all night until you could find the time to change.   
But this?  
Luckily for you, Delilah had left for her guest room shortly after you’d begun drinking. She had said something about speaking with Breanna, though you weren’t entirely sure how she planned to do that.   
So, presently, your only concern was Luca and convincing him that you did in fact attend the Academy of Natural Philosophy.   
Mostly, he asked you questions like “Is it true that they require you to dissect a corpse while the man is still living?” and “Did you deal with diseases? Or you use rational to analyze dreams? Or were you an more of an engineer? Like Kirin?”  
To each you gave incredibly vague answers. Luckily for you, you only had to really focus on the ones he asked while moderately sober. The drunker he got, the less attention you paid to details.   
But for the most part, you lied absurdly.   
“Yes! We did perform dissections on living corpses! But not all of them! Once, I was alone in my—my laboratory—and I was in the middle of a dissection and the body came back to life. Just sat right up! Scared the life out of me!” You laugh nervously, taking a deep drink. “But sometimes that’s . . . er, that’s just how it is.”  
“I can’t believe that,” Luca mumbles, slouched back in his seat with a nearly empty class of brandy, “You know, I’ve heard them say that if you electrocute the human brain after it’s died, you can bring someone back to life. Is that what you think happened?”  
“Oh, yes. Yes, definitely. Mm hm.”  
“Fascinating,” Luca stares idling into the fire place.   
Quite possibly the best part of this entire scenario was Kirin Jindosh who sat across from you, one leg poised over his knee, his elbow propped on the arm rest, his face resting against his hand. And his facial expressions when you spoke—he was both astounded by your absurd ramblings and awed by Luca’s inability to see through your charade. And somewhere between these two things, he had lost all faith in humanity.   
The best part was that he could not correct you.   
If he did, Luca would probably be able to figure out that you’d not actually attended the Academy. Or perhaps not—he didn’t appear to be wildly intelligent.   
So there sat the grand inventor, the greatest mind of the decade, stiff with the need to interject and say something to raise the overall IQ of the room.   
At this point in the conversation, you could care less about being right about literally anything. You were a little drunk and it was only 8 or 9 in the morning. Kirin had also had more than his fair share, though it was likely out of the desperate need to calm his anxious nerves. You assumed that the drinking would continue all day until the Duke was entirely lost to it, though maybe he had better tolerance than you. At any rate, this had to be your last drink.   
So you thought you’d make it count.   
“Kirin,” you say, a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth, “Kirin asked me to tutor him once.”  
Oh dear. You were afraid he was going to explode.   
Luca laughed and attempted to stand from the chair. He did so successfully. “That’s good to hear! I was under the impression that he was just born with all that stuff already in his head. I guess no one’s perfect, eh Jindosh?”  
Kirin’s narrowed eyes didn’t leave you when he responded, through clenched teeth. “I suppose not.”  
You stifled an embarrassing laugh.   
“Enough talk!” Luca tosses the rest of his drink into the fire, causing it to flare. “Have you got a shooting range on your estate, Kirin?”  
“I do not.”  
Luca makes a disapproving sound. “There’s no garden or anything either, huh? What do you do around here all day?”  
“Work,” Kirin slides a hand over his tired face. “What do you do all day? Besides drinking yourself into a stupor and engaging in various orgies.”  
Kirin wasn’t joking, but Luca laughed it away as if he had been. The Duke placed a heavy hand on the inventor’s slim shoulder and said, “It astounds me that you can spend so much time working on those mechanical men. But be honest, with someone as breathtaking as your colleague here in your home, aren’t you just the smallest bit distracted?”  
You freeze, your jaw clenched. All the mirth from earlier had withered away in an instant. Thankfully, Kirin had his wits about him and scoffed, swatting the Duke’s hand away. “I don’t have the time for such trivial things. I’m building you an army, aren’t I?”  
Luca retorted, “Yes, you’re right! One strong enough to do away with the annual sword-fighting contest! Though, I must admit—I really enjoyed going to that as a child.”  
Suddenly, it was as if an idea had come to him. But after seeing the look in his eyes, you felt something cold settle in your stomach.   
“I’ve got it,” he says, “I brought some of my personal guardsmen with me today. But with Delilah here with me, there’s not really a need for them all. How about we put one of your clockworks up against one of my hand-picked men?”  
Kirin glanced up at the Duke lazily, uninterested. “I assure you, the clockwork will win. They’ve yet to be bested. Furthermore, I’ve conducted tests against guardsmen before. The results are consistent.”  
“You said yourself earlier that you’ve improved on the design, yes? Isn’t that what I’m here to see? Or have you not been working as diligently as you say you have?”   
Swiftly, Kirin pulls himself out of the chair and exits the smoking room, replying over his shoulder, “Have it your way. But we’re not getting viscera in my reception hall. Let’s move down to the loading area.”  
You stay seated, hoping that they’ll just walk off without you. But, apparently, you’ve made quite the impression on the duke. He beckons you to attend with them, saying something about how your educated opinion would be fascinating to hear. It’s hard to recollect his exact words when all you can hear are Henry’s screams echoing in the back of your mind, long forgotten.   
\--  
The fight didn’t last long.   
The four men the Duke selected stood off against a single clockwork. They were older men, likely the guardsmen of the old duke who treated them with respect and admiration. Their vows to the Abele family forced them into their current position, their faces stony with acknowledgement.   
You didn’t watch. You cast your eyes to the ground and kept them closed. But that didn’t mute the sounds.   
Kirin stood beside you, his familiar clipboard in hand. He was absentmindedly taking notes, though this likely didn’t tell him anything he didn’t already know. In fact, he looked rather annoyed that the Duke was wasting his time. After all, Delilah wasn’t even present and she was his real audience.   
Luca cheered and goaded his men when they fell. He started the fight in good spirits and was soon rather upset that the clockwork was slaughtering his guards.   
You could smell the stench of death and could hear the gurgled sound of someone choking on blood.   
Luca swore under his breath.   
Kirin sighed and tapped his quill against the clipboard.   
You kept your eyes closed.   
\--  
Dinner came and went. Delilah had not been out of the guest room all day. Luca went to check on her at some point, but ended up getting lost in the house without his guardsmen to escort him. Though, likely, they wouldn’t have been much help.   
Kirin hadn’t had a moment alone with you since the start of the day. Even if Luca and Delilah weren’t present, he acted as though they were. You hadn’t seen any of Delilah’s witches all day, but there were faint whispers around every corner and shadows that seemed to move when you looked away from them.   
At the end of the day, you had a guest room all to yourself. While this was nice, you were worried about the days to come. Today’s luck would surely wear off by tomorrow. Additionally, the more time you spent with Luca Abele, the more you understood how cruel he could be.   
After dinner, the three of them had gone to Kirin’s private chambers to speak out on the balcony. That had been three hours ago. Night had fallen and you weren’t feeling very well due to the early-morning drinks and the stress of the day. There wasn’t much else you could do but sleep. Perhaps you could say that you felt ill tomorrow.  
As you pulled your night gown over your head, you heard footsteps approaching from outside your door and before you could prepare yourself, Kirin let himself into the room.   
Embarrassed, you attempted to pull the nightgown down the rest of the way while he strode right past you. He looked out your windows, into your wardrobe, and under the bed before making his way to the center of the room where he placed a cat-sized metal device on the floor. It had several adjustable glass lenses on top of it and hummed faintly when he turned it on.   
“Kirin—,” you began, only to have him hold a finger to his lips, ushering you into silence.   
You watched wordlessly as the inventor tinkered with the device until the lenses fell down in front of the central piece and the hum turned into a light vibration you could feel in your bones.   
“Alright, now you can speak,” he mumbles, still observing the device. “Though I’m not sure how long this will last. I’ve been working on something similar to this with Breanna, but on a much larger scale . . . and this machine has the opposite effect as that one. Truth be told, I’d been working on this in secret for a while now. I only just finished it about twenty minutes ago.”  
You just stare at him, confused. “Alright, what’s happening here?”  
“This is a jamming device,” he explains, rising to his feet, “But it once was my prototype for Breanna. The finalized version is with her, in the Conservatory. It allows her to reach out telepathically to all her cohorts. I’ve made adjustments to this to give it the opposite effect. Delilah and her followers can’t hear us from in here.”  
“Aren’t you worried Delilah will sense this thing’s presence?” You ask, wary.   
He replies, sweeping strands of loose hair back into place. “No, the field of activity isn’t but 20 to 25 feet in diameter. We’re alone.”  
“That’s useful,” you admit, “It was very smart of you to have thought of this.”   
He raises an eyebrow and scoffs. “Perhaps it was all your tutoring.”  
You shrug innocently. “In all fairness, my act worked quite nicely today.”  
Jindosh sits on the corner of your bed. “Yes, but don’t expect it to tomorrow. You need to leave tonight. I can come up with some sort of excuse for you. But I need you far away from here until they both leave.” He looks positively fatigued. Albeit, he’s been exhausted for a month and a half now. But today had been especially rough on his nerves.   
“I can’t just leave tonight,” you said, sitting next to him. “If I’m not here in the morning, that’ll make them suspicious. I’ll say that I have business elsewhere in Karnaca and that I only came by to see an old friend. That’ll be easier for them to understand, won’t it?”  
He regards you with doubt, his lips drawn in a thin line. But after a moment, he relents and places his face in his hands. “This is all a tremendous waste of my time,” he sighs, “Three damned days. It’s as if they are intentionally testing my patience.”  
You hesitantly place a hand on his back and begin to rub small circles. “If it’ll help you, I can take my work home with me so that we won’t be too far behind. And maybe they’ll leave sooner than you think?”  
Kirin peers out at you behind his fingers. “Your kindness is wasted on me, you know. I’ve no way to reciprocate it.”  
You smile weakly.   
“Truthfully, I did admire how well you held yourself together during Luca’s impromptu sword-fighting contest. I admit that I was worried you would lose your composure.”   
A bitter taste fills your mouth and you shake your head to clear your thoughts.   
“I dislike him.”  
“He is an absolute idiot, isn’t he?” Kirin shakes his head and begins to stand.   
You want to ask him to stay a little longer, though you have felt guilty for doing so. He’d been wanting to get to work all day and he hadn’t had a chance to yet. You watch as he kneels before the device and begins to shut it off before he pauses and returns to his feet.  
There he stands in silent contemplation for just a moment before turning with a small smirk on his face. “My tutor. You said you had tutored me.”  
A smile cracks across your face and you sweetly say, “I guess no one’s perfect?”  
He chuckles and returns to stand in front of you. In this position, your at eye-level with his midriff. And judging from the way he’s looking down at you, he’s very aware of it. You find yourself shuffling forward just a bit, your hands coming up to lightly grip his trousers, tugging him closer. His porcelain fingers tilt your chin up to meet his gaze. “I suppose not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are nearing the game’s time line! I’m so excited to finally draw these connections together like I’ve been planning to.   
> Also this was Kirin’s face during Luca and the Reader’s conversation:


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Jindosh POV!   
> TW: Hey what’s good hope you’re ready to have your feelings destroyed  
> Also, for AO3 people, the story here is caught up with what I've written on Tumblr! I'll try to get better at updating!

He hadn’t told you what had happened last night. And he wouldn’t.   
Before he had come to your bedroom, he had spent three hours on the veranda with Delilah and Luca. Kirin had already been at his wits-end by this point, so drained of energy from spending a full day hosting instead of his usual secluded routines that he had collapsed into an armchair, inviting the soon-to-be empress of the isles and the duke to join him.   
Luca had refused to sit and instead inquired about the blank canvas that had been left abandoned by the railing for several months now. Kirin had sourly dismissed the topic, still swallowing the bitter fact that he was rubbish at painting and had no eye for it whatsoever. The canvas now stood as a symbol of his defeat; he felt the urge to simply pitch it over the railing and perhaps would have done so sooner if he spent even a fraction of his time in his own bedroom.   
Delilah had been quiet all afternoon; too quiet. Kirin wasn’t easily intimidated due to an immense amount of egotistical self-reassurance, but he couldn’t help the chill that stayed permanently latched around his spine whenever Delilah looked upon him. Her eyes were cold and had seen all the marvels of the void which Kirin so desperately wished to learn. If he had been balancing on the railing of the balcony instead of trapped by her gaze, he’d be more at ease. She had said to him then, “Update us on the progress made to both the Oracular Order and your clockwork army.”  
Kirin swallowed and presented the empress with a calm smile. He felt beads of sweat form on the back of his neck despite the chill air. “I met with Breanna two months ago near the end of the Month of Darkness. I left her with a miniature prototype of an Oraculum for her to practice her witchcraft upon. It’s not the finished model, of course, but—,”  
“You have until the Month of Earth. We will usurp Emily Kaldwin on the 18th. You have three months to complete the Oraculum with Breanna and have it ready for testing. She will need time to build her connections with the Oracular Sisters, so it must be done by the end of the month of Timber. Then you can worry about your clockworks.”  
Kirin typically had trouble keeping his mouth shut, but in this instance, his jaw fell open and no words came out. Three months? Three months of his time? He could not complain to her. He could not object. This was her coup and he was merely factor of it. If he were given that time and support to perfect the clockworks, they wouldn’t even need the support of the Oracular Order. A hundred clockworks could seize Karnaca alone; a thousand could rule the empire. He was so close to the solution to this problem and now he’d be losing three months of work.   
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t dedicated his time to other projects—he’d spent two months on his riddle lock to Stilton’s home and then five months on the bank vault he’d installed. Kirin didn’t mind smaller projects; it was only that he’d already lost months of progress since he’d been preoccupied with you.   
Delilah stares patiently, awaiting his response. She doesn’t seem in the least bit worried that he might refuse; he cannot. Kirin valued his own importance to the empire higher than the witch did; he was aware of this too. He knew that out of the four of them, he and Hypatia were the loose ends. Perhaps only 2 of his clockworks would be enough to get Delilah into Dunwall tower and she wouldn’t need more than that to successfully rule. His continuation of the project would be for Luca’s benefit and to secure his own legacy; Delilah had no need for the practicality of his clockwork soldiers while she relied on her magic. If it were not for the oraculum, she could kill him now and still succeed in her plans.   
Kirin wasn’t an idiot. So he said, “That should be plenty of time. When do we start?”   
“Breanna will expecting you in one week. She’s agreed to accommodate you until you’ve completed the device. Then you’d return to your clockworks.”   
Jindosh looks out over his balcony at the Grand Serkonan Canal and then back to Delilah. “That’s across town,” he states simply. She merely blinks at him as if his statement held little weight to her.   
Kirin begrudgingly continues, “I’d be away from my home for three months, away from my projects and my devices. Will Breanna be able to provide me with sufficient tools? A proper workspace? I’ve been in the conservatory before and it’s constantly crowed with tourists—,”   
Once again she interrupts him, though this time it only took a glance to silence the grand inventor. Despite himself, he casts his eyes away from her and cannot bring himself to look into them again.   
Delilah responds, crossing one long leg over the other and leaning back leisurely into her chair, “Breanna shut the conservatory down yesterday evening for the Roseburrow exhibit. However, the conservatory is now being used to house the coven while Breanna makes room for the two of you to work privately. She assures me you will be well provided for as she’s known about this for a month or so now.”  
Kirin has nowhere to go from here. She’s only given him one option and that was to agree to her plans. He merely nods and agrees to her terms, thinking rapidly about the steps he needed to take in order to move from the mansion to the conservatory in only one week. Despite Delilah’s reassurances, he knew he’d need to bring his fair-share of equipment. Then there was the matter of clockwork production and purchases for the next three months. Cancelling all those appointments would be hellish and he dreaded the prospect of being away from his office for such a long time. He would need to bring at least some of his work with him to preserve his sanity.   
Then there was you to worry about. But he couldn’t think of that now.   
Delilah takes his pause of silence as a leeway to continue, “Since you will be sacrificing three months of work, I’ve devised a proposition for you.”  
Kirin snaps himself back to reality, raising a brow at the empress-to-be. Delilah looks out over Karnaca, toward the sea. “Anton Sokolov is the only mind in the world that could possibly aid you in your endeavors. Is that correct?”  
Jindosh visibly bristles at the name, a hot rage began to fill his stomach. That washed up, overrated—“I assure you that Sokolov wouldn’t be willing to collaborate with me, no matter the project. He and I last met on . . . unsavory terms.”  
Delilah offers a smirk. Luca finally takes his seat. “I never said he had to come willingly. My sisters have caught word that Anton has been aboard a ship skirting the empire for almost four years now. He’s old and pathetic, trying to spend his last few years dying in peace. He’s still loyal to Jessamine and her daughter; we don’t know if he’s been looking closely at the crown killer cases or not but it’s not unlike him to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. Do you catch my drift?”  
The wind picks up and the sound is nearly deafening for a moment. Kirin squints at her. “He’ll report back to the young empress. So what do you propose we do if it comes to that?”  
Delilah uncrosses her legs and leans toward the table. Kirin feels the urge to withdraw.   
“Sokolov is invaluable. Not only is he a renowned painter throughout the empire, he’s one of the brightest minds we’ve ever had. While I can’t have him telling stories to the child empress and while I wouldn’t mind seeing him beg for his life, I cannot deny that he might be of use to us. If you complete the oraculum in an reasonable amount of time, I will send Grim Alex to pluck him out of his nest and deliver him to you. Find some way to coerce him; see if old Anton can contribute to your efforts to perfect the clockworks. What you do with him from there will be up to you.”  
Kirin scratches the stubble on his chin, his mind expanding with possibilities. Anton Sokolov? Given to him like a gift? He envisions the picture of Sokolov—his mentor, his old hero—under his microscope.   
He feels a sinister smile creep onto his face. He’s placated.   
After this, the talk had dissolved into specifics: the schematics of the oraculum, the rumors of Sokolov, how Grim Alex would capture the old man. He had departed after bidding them good night and had gone straight to his laboratory to pick up the miniature oraculum. From there, he sought after you with a giddy skip in his step. Anton Sokolov! In his home! He could scarcely believe it.   
Everything had shifted and changed in an instant. He needed to do something about you. In just a week, he’d be gone for three months. From there, Sokolov could be brought to the mansion at any point in time. Kirin didn’t know you as well as he should, but he knew that you’d likely find some sort of ethical issue with what he planned to do with the old man once he got a hold of him. He couldn’t waste time arguing with you. His mind, which had been sedated with tender thoughts of you for weeks, was reeling again with malicious intent. To Kirin, Sokolov’s arrival would be groundbreaking. He needed to finish the oraculum as quickly as possible, no matter what it took.  
And that meant you had to go.   
He would bid you farewell tomorrow morning. There was no way you could be allowed in the mansion while he had Sokolov in his grasps; you were a morally upright individual with more empathy in your pinky finger than Kirin Jindosh had in his whole body. You’d make a fuss, slow him down, get in the way. That couldn’t happen.  
But there was more to it than that. He had gotten careless by promoting you from position to position. Selfishness was always his strong-suit, but he hadn’t accounted for the risks it would have. If he abducted Sokolov, every single one of his employees and associates would be targeted should someone come to rescue the old man. He had already put you in danger too many times, he couldn’t do it again.  
So he spent one last night with you, reveling in your embrace and your divine kindness.   
In the morning, he would have to make you hate him once more.   
“Three months?” you had echoed after him, looking lost and distracted as the Grand Inventor attempted to usher you out of the household as quickly as possible. You had already explained to the Duke and Delilah, who were still eating breakfast, that you had urgent business elsewhere to attend to. Then, Kirin had wasted no time excusing you from the table.   
“More or less,” he states under his breath, wary of who might be listening. “It’s a rather expansive project.”  
You give him side eyes and hiss, “Oh, like I’ve not heard that before. The only projects you care about are the clockwork soldiers; I don’t believe that you’re stepping away from your life’s work for three months—,”  
“Let’s not talk here,” Kirin opens the front doors to his home and glances around outside. When he feels confident that no one is around, he begins to guide you down the white-stone steps.   
You continue, louder now, “I just don’t understand. It was nearly impossible to get you to sleep just a few weeks ago because you were so concentrated on the clockworks—and now you’re perfectly fine with losing three months of work? Where are you going?”  
Jindosh jogs down the remaining stairs towards the carriage and opens the door for you. He pauses curiously when he notices you’ve not followed after him and glances back to see that you’re standing your ground on the top of the final set of stairs.   
He lets out a disgruntled sigh, on the border of being annoyed with you. “You know I can’t tell you that.”  
“You can’t or you won’t?” Your eyes are sharp, demanding the truth. “I don’t expect you to tell me every detail about what you’re doing, but I have the right to know where you’ll be for three months. I’m your—,” you pause. He doesn’t offer you an answer. What exactly were you to him? What was your relation to him at this point?  
After neither of you give a rightful answer, you are forced to say, “—your assistant. If I have to cancel all your appointments, I’m going to need something to tell all those outraged nobles.”  
Kirin waves a hand at you dismissively, “You won’t need to tell them anything. Just turn them away. I have no doubt in my mind that they’ll be glad to reschedule once I’m back. Trust me, no business will be lost.”  
You take a step down, your eyes flickering back and forth with thought. You ask, “Well then . . . what am I supposed to do while you’re gone? If—if there’s no work for me in the office, what would you have me do?”  
Kirin is quiet, for once. His mouth perks to the side a bit, hesitant to give you this answer.   
“You’re right, there’s no place for you as an assistant anymore. You’d run out of work to do within two weeks. So I’m afraid I’ll have to—,”  
You march down the remaining stairs, a dark anger in your eyes. He watches silently as you brush past him to board the carriage. Kirin has to pull his hand back quickly to avoid getting it smashed when you slam the carriage door shut.   
“You’re firing me,” you say, looking out over the roof-tops of Aventa. “That’s what you’re telling me.”  
He places both hands on the side of the carriage, leaning in. “You should count yourself lucky. I don’t usually dispel contracts like this.”  
“The Howlers have planted spies, Kirin. They know who I am. If you fire me, they’ll find out. They’ll hunt me down,” You look back at him and he’s surprised to see the anger replaced with fear. “I thought you wanted to keep me safe.”  
He feels remorse begin to crawl up his spine, but his ambition for success forces it back down. Instead, he combats the guilt with indignation, “Don’t be ridiculous. Paolo has no use for you if you’re not working for me. It’s not like I told you information that could prove valuable to him. And while it’s true that I’d like to keep you around, things are changing. I’m being called to bigger and better things; there’s no time on my agenda to watch over you every second of the day. Trust me, this is our only option.”  
“It’s not,” you spit between clenched teeth, “You know damn well it’s not. You could not go. You could stay and reach success on your own instead of relying on that damned witch. Instead, you’re being a coward, following orders like a whipped dog.”  
Kirin’s remorse dies away and he physically feels it leave him.   
“Now be honest, my love, which one of us follows the orders around here?”   
You shift in your seat, getting into his face. A sharp finger jabs into his chest while the other hand grabs a fistful of his collar. “Don’t give me that shit, Jindosh. We agreed not to play games anymore, remember? Stop it with the theatrics. Who are you trying to fool here?”  
He calmly reaches up and pries your hands away, using enough force to likely leave a bruise on your wrist. You dejectedly sit back down as he smoothens his clothing. “I’m not trying to fool you. Yet you’ve been fooled all the same. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. You knew this day would come; you never really believed I would dedicate more time to you than my work, did you?”  
Jindosh can only watch as he slowly destroys all those months of progress. He had wanted to see if he could change your mind—turn someone who loathed him into someone who loved him. It had worked, in the end. And now he watched it fall apart.  
You glare at him, your hands balled into fists on your lap. “So, what? Are you saying I was right to think I never meant anything to you? You really were just toying with me?”  
“Of course,” he smirks at you, a bitter taste on his tongue, “You said it yourself, didn’t you? To Paolo? ‘I know he likely doesn’t care for me like I care for him. It doesn’t bother me’. Those were your words, weren’t they?”  
In a fit of anger, you reach for the lever to set the carriage into motion. He’s faster than you and managers to catch the lever and hold it in place while you struggled to leave. “Why does this hurt you? Why are you surprised? Is it because we slept together? Do you think that changed anything? From the very start, I planned to dispose of you the second I had better things to do. You knew that, don’t act surprised now.”  
Tears were streaming down your face as you feebly attempted to yank the lever out of his grasp.   
“Just let me go,” you begged, “Just let go.”  
“I intend to,” he retorts, leaning in so that his lips were only a few inches from your ear, “I always had.”  
He’s surprised by the sharp sting on his cheek, so familiar. Recoiling from the harsh slap, his fingers flutter up to touch his face, eyes widening. It jolted him back to reality, a bit. His blind determination and ambition receded enough to allow him to see clearly.   
You were breathing hard, your hand still dangling in the air from where you’d struck him. Your face was flushed red with tears, your lip trembling. Rage and spite burned like a deep fire in your watery eyes. He couldn’t help but think to himself that you’d never looked so strikingly beautiful.   
There’s a moment where your breath settles and the sting of your slap numbs his face. Then, you seem to turn cold, like stone. Your jaw sets and you straighten your back, a hand on the lever to the carriage. “Congratulations,” you mutter, your voice thick, “I did end up loving you.”  
Then he watches as you ride away, leaving the clockwork mansion.   
\--  
He had stood there for some time. His heart was empty; it always had been. This was for the best, really. Really, he shouldn’t have allowed it to go on for as long as it did. You should have been dismissed from the contract the moment he started getting feelings for you. How foolish of him.   
Kirin Jindosh knew how to be cruel; it was second nature to him. Yet he’d never hurt someone in this way and he had certainly never hurt someone who he cared about.   
It was for the best. He kept telling himself that.   
After a while, he was forced to return inside. The mansion already seemed so different, though rationally he knew that nothing had changed about the structure. The panels and parts still moved with perfect precision. Nothing about this house was amiss.   
Yet, somehow.   
He found the Duke and Delilah sitting in the smoking room, murmuring quietly to one another. Something about his appearance must have intrigued them.   
The Duke asks, “My stars, Jindosh. What happened to you? Your face is red, just on one side.”  
“I’m fine,” Kirin takes a seat, slumping into his chair.   
His guests exchange glances. Delilah says, “You got rid of her, didn’t you?”  
Kirin sighs, “Yes, my colleague just departed. I apologize again for the inconvenience. She won’t be returning.”   
“Be sure of that,” Delilah tuts, studying the intricacies of the arc pylon just across the threshold, “If your mistress gets in the way of our plans again, Jindosh, I’ll use her remains to craft my bone charms, do you understand?”  
Kirin felt his chest clench. The Duke smirked at him, twirling a cigar between two fat fingers.   
The Grand Inventor attempts to sit up straight. “When did you know?”  
“I’ve known all along,” Delilah answers, “Be thankful I’m too busy to have handled it myself. She should count herself lucky that you spared her today. I would have done away with her last night if it weren’t for a strange force that seemed to drain me of my strength. You wouldn’t happen to know what that was, do you?”  
Jindosh is frozen to his seat. He eventually responds. “She won’t be a problem any longer.”  
“No, she won’t. You’d better hope she doesn’t set foot in this mansion again.”  
Kirin nods, dejected. “Of course, your imperial majesty. I hope you can forgive me for this nuisance.”   
“I’ll forgive you once the oraculum is up and running,” Delilah slips a glove off her left hand, revealing a dark mark on the back of her hand. She runs her fingers over it idly. “Do your part, and there should be nothing to worry about between us. Are we understanding one another?”  
Kirin quickly replays the confrontation he had with you in his mind. At the very least, he’s assured that you won’t be returning back to the mansion ever again. This gives him at least some peace of mind.   
“Of course, my empress.”


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is something I had planned around?? Chapter 3 I think.
> 
> This one is extra long to make up for the hiatus I’ve been on! Hope you enjoy it!

This is something I had planned around?? Chapter 3 I think.   
This one is extra long to make up for the hiatus I’ve been on! Hope you enjoy it!  
\--  
These three months felt like three years.   
You’d been fired from your previous occupation with only the money you had in your account and no decent recommendations. You had attempted to approach the Armstrongs, but had been turned away before you entered the gate. Evidently, the shame you had brought upon them was everlasting.   
Even after this, you had gone from household to household in Aventa, trying desperately to acquire occupation. But the Armstrongs had spread news about you to all of their wealthy friends. No one wanted to have you on staff.   
You then tried to apply for jobs that suited your brief experience with business. No sensible shop owner or profiteer would hire you without a solid recommendation. And contacting Kirin Jindosh for one was out of the question.   
The only other practical option was odd jobs, but none of them paid enough to provide you with a place to stay. As your choices thinned, you considered moving back to the worse parts of Karnaca that you had hoped to leave in your past. Surely some of your older households would take you in. The conditions had never been ideal; the living wage was barely acceptable and none of your previous employers had been particularly kind. At this point, though, what else could you do?  
Three weeks passed and you were growing short on money. You had to sell your apartment to afford a ferry ticket to sail across Karnaca, landing yourself in the middle of the Batista District, near the mines. This part of town was somewhat familiar to you; you’d been careful not to linger in the past, preferring to move uptown. But now, you had nowhere else to go.   
As predicted, within the first four days Paolo found you. Perhaps he’d known where you were all along. Word traveled fast in Karnaca—faster than the ferry. You had nothing to your name, only a handful of coin and nowhere to stay. So when Paolo offered you a room, you were forced to either accept or sleep in rat infested streets. The Howlers were not kind to you; most of them were rude and whispered spiteful insults under their breath as Paolo lead you into the apartment building that his gang had taken residence in. You had been uncomfortable at first; after all, even the smallest signs of impoliteness or violence typically set you on edge. But as Paolo had eloquently put it—  
“Where you gonna go? I’m willing to let you be one of us if you can tell me all there is to know about Delilah Copperspoon and what Jindosh is cookin’ up there in that mansion of his. If not, we can kill you quick to save you the trouble of starvin’ on the streets.”  
Needless to say, you complied.   
It wasn’t even that he had threatened you or that he was tempting you with place to stay—you had no reason to remain loyal to Kirin Jindosh.   
Within the first week, you told Paolo as much as you knew. To his disappointment, you didn’t know nearly as much as he expected you to. There were some accusations about you hiding intel, all of them from Mindy Blanchard who offered more than once to “squeeze the life out of you” to get more information. Paolo almost took her up on the offer, but you were insistent on your honesty.   
“Why would I hide anything from you? I have nothing to gain by keeping Jindosh’s secrets anymore. He’s thrown me away, just like you said he would.”  
“Yea, but I thought he’d kill you. Either way, this is useless.”   
Week two involved you explaining every financial trade Jindosh made, the clockworks he was designing, his work and sleep patterns, his communications with the Duke and Breanna Ashworth. Paolo seemed pleased with this and from that point on, had spread word to the rest of the Howlers that you had proven yourself useful.   
That didn’t make assimilation any easier for you.   
The Howlers seemed to absolutely despise you. Then again, you were posh in your mannerisms. You’d come from nothing, true, but you’d lived most of your life in well-to-do households for nobility and high-born employers. You knew proper etiquette, hygiene, and mannerisms, which evidently infuriated them. On top of all that, if you were sent on any sort of “errand” with them, you were always the weakest link.   
Some of these “errands” involved robbery, bribery, and most often assault. Paolo had Mindy send you with her best men and women so that he could both test you and toughen you up. The fourth week of the first month was when you first took part in a murder. Two veteran howlers—Samwell and Kingsly—had been ordered to bring you along on a simple mission to retrieve debt money for Mindy. The man was of nobility, not unlike someone you would see yourself working for. He had hired Mindy’s main crew to harass a rival of his into giving up a slice of a business deal and they had delivered, leaving threatening messages at his offices or beating up his serving staff. The rival had succumbed and now the hirer owed a hefty amount of money to Mindy. He had not delivered and was now denying any sort of relation whatsoever.   
So Samwell and Kingsly, with you in tow, had showed up at the place of business and had dragged the buyer into a back ally. Their intentions were to just rough him up when they had placed a metal bar in your hands. You watched as they kicked and hit the nobleman, watched as he shrank into a ball on the dirty cobblestone street.   
“Hit him!” yelled Kingsly, “You’re a fuckin’ gutless coward; Mindy will be more than happy to put a bit of silver between your eyes!”   
Your fingers were so tightly wound around the cold metal that your knuckles ached. Heart pounding hard enough that you could feel it in your ears, you lifted the bar above your head.  
You had only hit one person before.   
At the memory, rage had filled your chest and you let out a snarl, bringing the bar down hard against the man’s ribs. He let out a painful scream. You were breathing hard, your eyes burning. You hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but you were so, so angry. Almost instantaneously the fury had subsided and you had spiraled into a sort of panic.  
Kingsly and Samwell, impressed by your display, had been reignited and turned on the nobleman with more fervor than before. It had only been a minute or so of violence, but you noticed before they did that the buyer was dead. Bile filled throat, but you forced it down, stumbling until your back hit the wall behind you. Samwell reached into the nobleman’s pocket and pulled out a coin purse.   
“This isn’t nearly enough coin,” he commented before rummaging around in the corpse’s waistcoat. “Ah, found a key. I’ll go back in and see if I can sneak my way into his office. Bet there’s a safe up there. You two wait out here. If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, leave without me.”  
Then he disappeared. Kingsley had lit a cigarette, put it between his lips, and bent down to lift up the body.   
“I’m gonna go dump this in a gutter. You stay here and wait for Sammy.”  
Then he, too, disappeared.   
Alone, you took the opportunity to vomit into a nearby bin. Your knees shook.   
\--  
The second month went by much faster. After the death of the buyer, you had hardened considerably. When the other Howlers looked at you, they saw that the tender naivety had begun to fade, replaced by something much sharper. As for you, you acknowledged that this was happening and faced it indifferently. This was how it had to be and it was not the first time that you had been forced to adapt to a new way of living. Mindy took a particular shine to you and had appointed you as one of her top crewmembers. You went on several more “errands” during the second month—many more of them ended with violence in one way or another. The Howlers called you by your last name, a friendly gesture, and they had begun to really welcome you with open arms. Paolo seemed pleased by your quick progress and often came to you with new information about the upcoming coup.   
“I’ve heard that the empress is having a commemoration to honor her late mother in the Month of Earth. I don’t know about you, but I imagine the more notable members of her court will be there. Sounds like the best time for the witch to strike, wouldn’t you agree?”  
“I guess. Jindosh never told me any dates or specifics. But it makes sense.”   
“That’s what I’m thinking. Aside from that, you said Jindosh is currently shacking up with Breanna Ashworth? Working on some sort of device?”  
“He told me once that the only device he had been prototyping for Ashworth was for some form of communication. I saw a smaller version of it myself. It’s powerful. Don’t know what it’s going to be used for.”  
“I’d like to get eyes on that little project of theirs, but every group of Howlers I’ve sent hasn’t made it back. Can’t risk it again.”  
Little meetings like this were routine. The less you spoke about Kirin, the better. The information you gave to Paolo didn’t feel like betrayal—but even if it was, why should it bother you? He had said it himself that he’d never actually felt anything for you, even during the best of times. Part of you wondered if he’d been bluffing as he banished you from the mansion, but the seed of doubt, long ago planted by the Howlers, had grown too large. He was a sociopath. You’d been mesmerized by him, tricked, played with until you’d developed emotions. It was cruelty.   
Any lingering thought the grand inventor had to be ignored. You were at fault for letting him control you, but not again.   
It was near the end of the third month when Paolo pulled you, Kingsley, and Samwell into the foyer of the hideout. He was behind the glossy bar, polishing a tumbler absentmindedly. This particular scene was nothing new. Samwell and Kingsley were often your partners for Paolo’s “errands” and the three of you had managed to form a sort of comradery.   
Paolo sat the glass down and leaned on wooden bar, fixing you with a squinty stare. “He’s coming back home today.”   
You didn’t need to ask who. You’d been keeping your ears open for news and counting the days down. Jindosh had finished his work at the conservatory.   
“I’m sure he’s eager to get back to his workshop,” you retorted, not flinching under his gaze.   
Paolo grinned and said, “I don’t know. If I got to shack up with Ashworth every night, that’d take my mind off of things.”  
Keeping a straight face, you responded, “It’s getting closer and closer to time. If he perfected the device, I can only imagine that the coup is gaining traction.”  
“Yea, yea,” Paolo waved the rag in the air, to-and-fro, before tossing it under the counter. “That I know. It’s old news, you get me? We’ve got people just about everywhere. We’ve got servants working in the Duke’s fancy estate, we’ve got eyes on Breanna, we’ve got a few guardsmen in Jindosh’s mansion . . . but we’ve got almost no information.” Paolo flips the tumbler over and slams it onto the counter, hard enough to make a startling noise but not rough enough to shatter it. He grits his teeth silently, frustrated. “Really woulda’ worked out for us if you’d joined the team earlier, while you and Jindosh were still pillow talking. Jindosh was the only real connection we had to the witch. My men don’t come back from Ashworths, Stilton’s fucking useless, and the Duke’s too much of a fool to really credit. Fuck.”   
You bristled at his words, but gradually worked yourself down.   
Kingsley interjected the silence by saying, “Something’s on your mind, boss. Just give the order.”   
You watched Paolo’s jaw work back and forth, his eyes darting across an invisible map laid out before him. It reminded you of Kirin’s deep thinking. You closed your eyes and tried to focus.   
“He trusts you,” Paolo pointed a boney finger in your direction. “More than he trusts any of my men I’ve got stationed up there. I need you to do something for me, and you’re not gonna like it, but tough shit. This is big picture, my friend, very big. If we don’t have all our cards ready by the time this coup goes underway, we might not wind up on top when Karnaca goes to shit. Understand me?”  
All eyes are on you. Sweat dampens your palms and you feel something dreadful setting in your throat.   
“Yes, sir,” you mutter.   
Paolo slaps a hand down on the counter and continues, “Good. I’m gonna need you to go back to that mansion and do whatever it takes to get him to tell you specifics. I wanna know what that communication device is for. I wanna know what happened to Stilton. I wanna know about the witch—where her power comes from, who she really is. Kingsly and Samwell will go with you.”  
You lurch forward in your chair, brows knit together with a sort of pleading frustration, “Boss, listen to me. Those clockworks will cut us down on the spot if we even get close to Ki—Mr. Jindosh. There’s no way—,”  
“Then don’t rough him up. Say you’ve got a new job down here in the Batista disctrict. Tell him you’re boss wants a clockwork and he’s sent you. Kingsley and Sam haven’t ever been to the mansion, so tell him they’re hired hands. Sound familiar? Why wouldn’t he believe your story?”  
There aren’t any words coming out of you; your mouth opens then closes as you nearly squirm in your seat. Paolo’s face darkens at your hesitation and he slowly leans back, tipping his chin up to look down upon you. “What, you’re not up to it? You gonna say no to Paolo?”  
What were your options here? Go to the clockwork mansion and face the man you loved or be carved up by the Howlers and pitched into the streets?   
“. . . no, boss. I’d never.”  
The air lightened as Paolo seemed to relax, a smirk tugging at the corners of his leathery face. He clasped his hands together. “Good. Now, do you still got that maid’s uniform?”  
\--  
It felt like you were trapped in a never ending part of the void, doomed to relive the morning your entire world changed. You smoothened your sleeve cuffs and ran a finger over a button you had had to re-sew that morning. The white bits of your maid uniform were faintly stained from neglect and lint had gathered on the black.   
Beside you say Kingsley and Samwell, out of their typical drab Howler wear and work clothes they had beat off of someone. You could tell they had jumped different men; their undershirts were different colors and where Kingsley wore a miner’s shoes, Samwell had stolen his off of a shop owner.   
You had a terrible feeling this wouldn’t work. Kirin Jindosh was far too keen on details to not notice something like this.   
Aside from that, Paolo had given you a money sack full of coin. You found it incredibly irritating that he had always made it a game to haggle over the clockwork price, yet he managed to scrounge up enough money for one within an hour. With the money bag came a handwritten note from Mindy who had gone under the alias of a wealthy aristocrat who owed her a favor. Her handwriting was decent, actually, which is likely why Paolo didn’t volunteer to do it himself. It could almost be passable if it weren’t for the wax seal, which they had stamped with the cork of a whiskey bottle. Anyone with the smallest bit of noble-know-how knew that even smaller households had their own personalized wax stamper.   
All this aside, you tried your best to steel yourself for what awaited you just a mile or so ahead. You were a different person now; even such a small amount of time had really altered you. Would Kirin notice it instantly? Could he look into your eyes and know that you had hardened? You knew how astute he was when it came to reading people and knew that he was particularly good at reading you.   
It didn’t really matter, though, did it? Here you were, either way, and there was no going back now. Doom awaited you at the mansion and doom awaited you if you returned to Paolo empty handed.   
Letting out a sigh to calm your nerves, you look to your left and inhale the sweet smell of the redvines that climbed up the structures of Aventa. You had missed the fragrance from going into work each morning. It touched a part of you that had been buried for a while now.   
As you bask in the aroma, you notice where you are. The carriage began to rattle past your old apartment building. It was early enough in the morning that you could see two of Jindosh’s maids waiting by the carriage station. Your heart sank as the vehicle started to slow, stopping to let them in.   
They recognized you before the carriage even docked, their mouths moving in hushed whispers that you couldn’t hear. When the door opened, they seemed to hesitate for a moment before shuffling into the carriage and taking their seats.   
The silence was breathtaking, dense enough that you could hear your heart in your ears. It was only disrupted as Samwell leaned against a knee, putting on a flirtatious smirk as he began to chat the two women up. They seemed to at least be a little distracted by him, but their eyes flickered to you as they conversed.   
They said nothing in your direction.   
The mansion’s sparkling glass windows came into few, blinding with the morning light. The waterfall roared as it always had, new water every day though it looked the same as it had that first time you’d arrived.   
The two maids disembarked from the carriage first, making it a point to hustle up the stairs while you, Kingsley, and Samwell took your time.   
A hand caught your wrist before you could make it up the first flight of steps. Samwell held you back, peaking over your shoulder until he was certain the maids were inside the building.   
“Let’s go over the plan one more time,” he said, scratching at his collar. “I need a refresher.”  
Kingsley sighed, obviously on edge, “Look, get all your questions out now before we get in there. I want this to be over with quickly and we can’t do that if you’re pissin’ off to fuck the help.”  
They exchanged tense looks, so you snapped your fingers to clear the air. “Alright, alright. That’s enough. Look, I’ve been in this building more times that I can count. I know it inside and out, better than most of the staff here. I’ve been in rooms that only Jindosh himself has stepped foot in. So if anyone is going to guide us around this mansion, who’s it going to be?”  
They grunted, together, “You.”  
“Very good. Now, the two of you don’t actually have to say a word. I’ll speak to Jindosh about buying the clockwork, he’ll ask for the money, I’ll have to stay behind and fill out paperwork, and he’ll send the two of you to the loading dock.”  
Samwell interrupted, “Yea, see, that’s the part I got an issue with. The last poor fucker who did this routine with you got butchered all up to hell. Now, I’m not afraid of any hunk of junk, but—,”  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” you sighed. “You won’t actually be dealing with a clockwork. You’ll go to the elevator and take it to the upper floors. Make your way to Jindosh’s office while I’m distracting him. There’ll be a desk where he keeps all his personal letters between him and members of the coup. Grab whatever you can.”  
Kingsley nodded, but his face was so white that he looked ill. “I know I’ve already asked you, but . . . you say he can hear when people are in certain parts of the house, right? He can tell where we are?”  
You shake your head. “He can only monitor that sort of thing from inside the office. I’ll make sure to keep him in the assessment chamber. There are grand guard personnel guarding that floor, but Paolo said he’s taken care of it. They should be our guys. One of them has rewired the wall of light. From there, it’s a little tricky, but you have the rough drawing of the layout I gave you. Remember that the only way to get to his office is by using the rotating center pallet. Alright? Are we clear?”  
They glanced between one another and seemed to regain their confidence. Just from explaining it again, you felt your nerve reassert itself.   
You could face him. You would. And you’d pull the rug right out from underneath his lying ass.   
\--  
The guardsman who greeted you in the front lobby was not a Howler, but it was a good sign. The downstairs appeared to be full of genuine grand guardsmen, which implied to you that the upper floor had to be equipped with Paolo’s imposters. The guardsman took a look at your letter, but only seemed to glance at it, fortunately. “The 9 o’clock appointment will be a little delayed,” he notified you on your way to the waiting room. Ah, how it was so similar to back then. “The grand inventor has only recently returned home from a long reprieve.”   
You knew Kirin fairly well. So you knew that right now, he had to be completely exhausted. Three months away from home, working night and day the entire time, hardly eating, making it home last night, burying himself in his own work, then forcing himself out of bed this morning to meet with buyers. If it had been any other circumstance, Kirin would have needed a few days of alone-time to recuperate. Unfortunately for him, he had to make money to spend money—and clockworks consumed quite a great deal of money.  
You hadn’t spoken a word yet. Kingsley and Samwell sort of shuffled about the waiting room, pulling books off of shelves, but not really reading them. They eventually plopped themselves onto one of the striped couches and had their fill of fruit.   
Ten minutes went by. Maids and servants passed through the waiting room from time to time, offering more refreshments. Each time, it was a different member of the serving staff and their eyes were almost glued to you. It seemed that they were taking turns gawking.   
Fifteen minutes went by and you were just getting comfortable. If you knew Kirin, you knew you’d all be here another thirty minutes before you even heard from him. And as tired as he was, you half expected him to cancel and postpone the meeting altogether.   
Thirty minutes. Samwell was sitting upright, but his eyes were closed and a line of drool was forming down his chin. Kingsley had taken to tossing peach pits into an empty wine glass he’d stationed a couple of feet away. You sat with your legs crossed, working hard to conceal the storm inside your mind. The longer you sat in silence, the more anxiety you built up until—  
The long forgotten sound of the speaker system whirring to life nearly jostled the two Howlers out of their seats. You braced yourself for the sound of his voice. “My apologies for your extensive wait. While I can imagine you’re growing quite restless, I can only hope that you understand how busy of a man I am. It should only take me another ten minutes and I’ll be there. I do hope you’ll forgive my tardiness.”  
You let the sound of it fill you up, felt the emotions stir, then smirked as you conquered them.   
“Why, of course we understand,” you reply, “The grand inventor should take his time.”  
Silence over the intercoms. If you didn’t know any better, you would have thought he hadn’t heard you. But the speakers had not made the high-pitched burst that signaled the end of a transmission. He had heard you.   
The silence lasted for no more than a few seconds before the intercom finally shut down, the abrupt screech of static ringing in your ears like a forgotten song. He had most certainly heard you.   
\--  
Though Jindosh had said it would take him ten minutes, the man arrived in nearly two.   
You had imagined that you’d see him the same way you’d first met. That he’d lower the guest room into the assessment chamber and you’d see him in his familiar scrappy brown over shirt and starched green trousers, a clipboard in his hands. But, instead, he surprised the entire foyer by arriving down the elevator in a his white undershirt with suspenders and his hair all a mess around his sharp features. Smudges of oil and grease were smeared across his face and arms. He’d been in the middle of working and likely—had it been any other house guest—wouldn’t have actually arrived to the meeting for another thirty minutes as predicted.   
And yet, here he was, his long legs carrying him across the glass floor so quickly that you barely had enough time to stand and greet him before he was in the waiting room. His face was flushed with anger, his grip tight as he grasped your shoulders and shook you in place.   
“Why are you here?” he demanded, enunciating each word. “You need to leave this instant. Didn’t I make it clear the last time we spoke that there’s no place for you here?”  
You were moderately alarmed by his actions, but even more so by Kingsley and Samwell who had fully stood up and seemed to be itching to come to your aid.   
The physical contact was enough to set off all of your alarms, so you made short work of swatting his hands away and distancing yourself. He let go rather easily; his hands seemed to tremble.   
“Mr. Jindosh,” you began, clearing your throat to be rid of the cracks in your voice. “As you know, I’m a servant with useful skills that set me above most others. As it so happens, I’m in a similar predicament as I was in before. I have a new employer now and they’ve entrusted me to come and negotiate the pricing of a clockwo—,”  
Kirin stepped towards you, his hands up as if to caution or plead. He lowers his voice and whispers your name in such a gentle way that it jolts you right out of your façade. “Listen to me. We don’t need to negotiate. Just give me however much you were told to offer and I’ll take it. Return to lower Aventa and await your colleagues at the station—I’ll send them with the clockwork. But you must understand. You cannot be here.”  
Something was wrong. Kingsley and Samwell were already cracking under the tension. You could see them shifting their weight from foot to foot. The plan wasn’t working the way you’d structured it and they were getting antsy.   
But that was the least of your worries. Something caught Kirin’s eye and he glanced over your shoulder into the glass foyer. Turning, you tried to follow his gaze. In the corner of the smoking room, shrouded partially in shadow, you saw the pale skin of one of Delilah’s witches just before she had a chance to fade out of sight. Your chest clenched.   
Kirin said your name again, desperate this time, his hand grabbing your wrist. “Let’s go, I’ll take you to the front door.”  
You were so alarmed by the witch’s presence and what it implied that you limply followed him. He almost had you out of the foyer before Samwell stepped between the inventor and the exit. “Hold on there. We came here to talk to you, and we ain’t leavin’ until we do.”   
Jindosh snapped, like a thin sheet of glass, “Step aside, you inbred fool, or I’ll have you gutted.”  
You saw in Samwell’s eyes the same look he gave before he killed a man. You couldn’t see, but you felt Kingsley’s presence begin to close in from behind. The guardsmen in the foyer began to shout and you could hear their boots slapping against the floor.   
The chain of events happened so quickly that it seemed to only register in short sequences.   
Samwell pulled a cleaver out from the back of his trousers.   
Kingsley was rushed by guardsmen first and blocked their path to the other Howler.  
And you grabbed Kirin’s shoulders and yanked him backwards, placing yourself between him and Samwell.   
It was then that the clockwork stepped out from behind the corner, looming a good two feet taller than Sam even with the cleaver raised high. The Howler hesitated, seeming to become aware of the clockwork’s presence just behind him.   
Kirin’s fingers tangled in your blouse as he stumbled to the floor, taken off-guard by the chaos yet still desperately attempting to pull you into his arms.   
Everything seemed to move at half-speed.   
Samwell began to lower the cleaver, but the clockwork was much faster. One sharp blade of an arm reared back, then in the blink of an eye, time reasserted itself.   
There was a sharp pain in your lower stomach. Warm liquid had splattered against your face.   
Several maids screamed, Samwell had yelped pitifully, and someone had shouted your name. But you stood there, wordlessly, trying to process the long metal arm that had passed completely through Samwell’s chest and had buried itself almost five inches into your abdomen.   
The clockwork clicked methodically before it withdrew its appendage, pulling out of you so fast that you hardly felt it. Samwell was still alive, though he fell limply to the ground without the support of the arm. The cleaver clattered to the glass floor beside him.   
The clockwork wasn’t done, though. It had a job to do. You were still standing.   
In shock, you could only stare blankly as the mechanical soldier reared back for another attack, it’s wooden face speckled with blood.  
Just as it began to swing, Kirin grabbed you by your waist and pulled you to floor, covering you with his own body, shouting a sequence of seemingly meaningless numbers and letters. The clicking sound stopped. The footsteps retreated. And Kirin removed himself from atop you.   
You stared at the beautiful glass ceiling as the inventor frantically ripped the buttons off of your blouse and exposed your wound. He was muttering rapidly to himself, but would stop every few seconds and bark commands at the serving staff. They brought him rags to stop the bleeding until a stretcher arrived.   
Your eyes drifted from the ceiling to Kirin, observing his troubled face as his mind diagnosed the severity of the injury. You could feel a puddle begin to form under you; it was coming out so fast even with the pressure he was applying.   
You couldn’t really sort anything out in your head.   
What was clear, however, was that you were slipping into unconsciousness with every passing second. Your eyes wondered from Kirin to the foyer around you. Perhaps it was a hallucination, but you could have sworn you saw Delilah’s witch leaning against the smoking room entrance, a small smile gracing her lips.   
Then you fell under.   
\--  
The process of regaining consciousness was far more arduous that losing it. You slipped in and out of sleep, muttering incoherently to yourself. Your dreams became plagued with reality as you were made more and more aware of the pain you were in. Someone was picking at your wound; it felt like a vulture nibbling at your flesh. The thought consumed your nightmares until you finally shook yourself awake, sweating and panting, completely disoriented.   
You were unsure of how much time must have passed between the incident and your current predicament. The glass foyer was gone. Samwell was gone, and Kingsley too. This room radiated with warm, golden light. Above you was a chandelier; beyond that, the ceiling was a pitch-black dome.   
You were in his office. Or, no. You were in his laboratory.   
Everything ached, your spine included. You had been laid across a metal examination table with only a rolled up rag as a pillow. Summing up the strength, you lifted your head from the table and glanced down at yourself. Your breasts were covered by a thin piece of cloth, spotted with flecks of dried blood. Below, you could only catch a glimpse at the sutured mess that was your abdomen. Whoever had stitched it back together had done a very good job of it; regardless, the wound was not a pretty one.   
“I told you didn’t I? I’m quite proficient at closing wounds. I’ve had plenty of practice on cadavers.”   
Hazily, you turned your head to see Kirin sitting on a stool, his arm propped against his knee, his chin in his hand.   
His white under shirt was stained black and red from where he’d thrown himself on top of you, pressing against your wound. His hands were still stained, though it appeared that he’d tried to wash them vigorously. If you thought he had looked disheveled earlier . . .   
Your mouth felt so dry, you could hardly wet it enough to reply, “How bad was it?”  
He just stares at you for a second, his eyes closing before he moves to stand. “I’m not a surgeon. I know the theory, and that’s all. You got lucky; none of your internal organs had been severely damaged. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to save you.”  
Got lucky? He would think that, wouldn’t he?   
You lift a heavy hand to try and touch the stitching, but Jindosh quickly reprimands you, “Don’t touch it. Your hands aren’t clean. You’ll need at least three weeks to fully recuperate, by my rough estimates. I’ve considered calling upon Dr. Hypatia, though she’s not in any fit state of mind to offer aid.” He lets out a sigh and sweeps his hair back.   
“I’m guessing Samwell’s dead?” you ask, a bitter taste on the back of your tongue.   
Kirin gives you a quizzical look, “Who—? Oh, yes, you mean the Howler my clockwork skewered. Yes, he was dead before we even got you on the gurney. The other one is being held in the assessment chamber, though I fear it’s getting a tad crowded in there.” He goes over to one of his work desks and retrieves his familiar brown overcoat. “I never would have imagined that you’d join their ranks. Not in my wildest imaginations. Truly, you never cease to surprise me.”  
Jindosh carefully drapes the article of clothing over your chest.   
At this point, you’re able to collect your thoughts better. You retort, “I didn’t have very many options, did I? You practically tossed me into the street.”  
He scoffs, coldly. “Don’t be so dramatic. You were let go. It was a rational decision on my part.”  
“The cruelty wasn’t necessary,” you spat, “All those things you said. You didn’t have to go that far.”  
Kirin rubs at his forehead, his lips curling in an annoyed scowl. “I meant what I said. There was no place for you here, not then and not now.”  
You fix him with a glare that seems to tame his attitude, if only for a moment. He continues, exasperated, “The pieces of Delilah’s plan were being set into motion—there was no longer any time for folly. Though it may enrage you, I chose my own personal gain over whatever we had together.”   
You squint at him, doubtful. In that instant, you were suddenly aware of the whirring hum of that device he’d shown you months ago. Looking around, you spotted it on a workbench, activated and playing such a low frequency sound that it was just barely noticeable. “They’re after me, aren’t they?” You attempted to sit up, only to have him place a calloused hand on your bare shoulder. “Delilah knew about me. Knows about me. That witch in the foyer—she’s been sent to—,”  
He shushes you, doing what he can to calm you down. “None of them can get in here with that device whirring. On a larger scale, and with similar improper lenses, it could completely sever their connection with Delilah. They won’t risk it. You’re safe for the time being.”   
“I never saw any witches during my time away,” you explain, trying to sort it out in your own mind, “Even when I was out in the open, in the Batista district, I never saw so much as a shadow. You said Delilah would kill me instantly if she found out I was distracting you. What was stopping her when I was so vulnerable?”  
Kirin doesn’t respond. His eyes linger for a moment before moving away. He’s quiet.   
Realization began to dawn on you the longer he took to speak. “You weren’t just firing me to get me out of your way. What did you do, Kirin?”  
Jindosh pushes himself away from the examination table, making his way towards the humming device. “You’re overestimating me, my dear. A rare occurrence, I assure you.” he speaks over his shoulder. You can hear him adjusting the knobs and switches. “I did indeed terminate you to get you out of my way. It just so happened that in doing so, I saved you from being terminated in a much more literal sense.”  
While he wasn’t watching, you stiffly swung your legs over the side, gritting your teeth at the pain it took to sit up. Holding the overcoat to your chest, you adjusted until you were upright. “So she was planning on killing me.”  
“Only if you came back to the mansion. I was confident that my words had driven you away for good, but you’re always finding new ways to astonish me.” He stops what he’s doing and turns to face you again, his expression twisting with discontent when he sees that you’ve moved. “Really, is it so hard for you to listen to me, every now and again? You shouldn’t be moving so much. Lie back down—,”  
“That thing runs on whale oil, right?” You motion towards the disrupting device. “That means its power source is limited. It could eventually stop working.”  
“Inevitably,” he admits, a little surprised by the abruptness of your query. “But I can keep sustaining it.”   
“It’s only a prototype. Prototypes aren’t meant to last forever.” You close your eyes and exhale shakily. “They’ll come for me eventually. That thing can’t go forever—it’s so small and if it runs on whale oil then its power isn’t indefinite—”  
Kirin shakes his head, trying to reassure you, or rather, himself, “I can always repair it. Or create another.”  
“How long would that take? It took you three months to perfect one. And what it’s doing right now—that’s not even its intended function.”  
“What in the void do you know about this sort of thing? What expertise are you drawing upon here? Dammit, just . . . be quiet. Let me think.” His brow crinkles with an odd combination of vexation and panic. Jindosh starts to pace, murmuring quietly to himself. He bites his lip and fixates upon the device, crunching numbers and probabilities faster than you could ever hope to. Yet, for perhaps the first time, you knew the outcome of a problem before the inventor.   
“Jindosh, listen—,” you begin in a whisper. He raises a hand to hush you, his mind still racing.   
“I need absolute silence, I’m thinking.”  
“Kirin.” Your voice is solid and heavy, enough to echo around the room. “Stop, just stop.”  
The inventor throws his hands up and scoffs, “What would you have me do, then? Sit and wait for Delilah’s witches to seize their moment?”  
“Paolo knows I’m here. He’s got guardsmen planted in your home who know what has happened. If we can get one of them to deliver a message, we might have a solution.” You attempt to put weight on your legs, but your system is still foggy with sedatives. Kirin is close enough that he can catch you just before you collapse. With your face pressed into the crook of his neck and his arms on either side of you, it’s easy to forget what he’s done and what he’s said.   
He pulls you up, but doesn’t back away. For a fraction of a second, it’s an embrace.   
Then, you muster up the willpower to push away from him. “There’s no time for us to sort everything out. For now, call upon the guardsmen on the second floor. They’re all Paolo’s.”  
“How do you know they’re where you say they are?” He raises a brow at you. “What were you really doing here today?”  
You shake your head, “There’s really no time to discuss it. I’ll explain everything if this works and I’m not murdered, deal?” Jindosh’s face contorts with a suspicious look, but he shakes it away and helps you get back onto the examination table.   
“I should know better by now than to enter into deals with you,” he chuckles, though it’s tense with stress. He leans back to look at you, likely beholding your pain stricken eyes and drained face. You’re surprised to feel his hand cup your cheek, his ceramic thumb brushing the cheekbone. You’re still angry with him and likely would always harbor some sort of contempt for the way he discarded you all those months ago. But for now, when your life was on the line, it was comforting to feel his touch again—to have him so close and to hear him say your name. “Let’s just hope this one isn’t our last.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was so long and dramatic that I felt like I was cramming two chapters into one. We’re getting so close to the end! Ah!!


	12. Chapter Twelve FINAL

Three of Paolo’s men who had been standing guard on the second floor helped carry you outside. Kirin refused to allow Kingsley to come with you, or rather, he simply ignored the subject all together. The pain was beginning to creep up on you, so you didn’t bother to press him.   
The guardsmen supported you while Kirin carried the device, setting it carefully next to him on the carriage seat. “You’re confident in this plan of yours?” he asks somewhat warily. As soon as the Howlers set you down across from Jindosh, the inventor’s hands flutter over to poke and prod at you. You breathlessly assure him then insist that the stitches are fine, swatting at his hands.   
The Howlers stayed behind while the carriage jolted to life. They would likely spend the next few hours trying to bust Kingsley out of the assessment chamber—but from what you knew, they’d find that to be quite the challenge.   
“Let’s just hope I don’t die from my wounds before we get to the Batista District.” You can feel the throbbing pain all the way up to your neck. The sedatives had worn off. Jindosh has his eyes on you, reading you carefully minute by minute in order to keep a tab on your condition.   
“I’ve not been to Aramis Stilton’s home in quite some time,” he remarks absently. “Not since the instillation of the Jindosh Lock.” The inventor shifts in his seat, rubbing at his face to ease the tension.   
Your throat feels dry, but you remark, “I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard of it. Honestly, Kirin, must everything be some sort of puzzle?”  
Jindosh’s stern expression twitches with amusement and he slowly begins to relax a little. “I take that to mean you couldn’t solve it.”  
The two of you ride in silence for a little while. The machine is still whirring quietly, the whale oil burning bright blue as the sun began to set. It would take at least an hour or so to reach the other side of Karnaca, even while taking the carriage line.   
That allowed time for a conversation.   
“I admit that it was pretty naïve of me to assume we could stay the way we were—especially with a coup underway.” You smile sadly, staring at your palms. “We were acting like it was a realistic outcome.”   
Jindosh regarded this quietly for a moment before he retorted, “I concur. We let it go on for too long and I had absolutely no way of knowing—that being, no previous experience in detecting—whether or not things could change in an instant. Which, ultimately, happened. It’s entirely possible that this whole situation started because I couldn’t resist the urge to test you.”   
The night air, warmer now that the cold months had passed, did little to soothe you. Wordlessly, you opened your mouth only to let it close. What could you say?   
“But, given the chance, I suppose I wouldn’t change anything about this past year. My opinion on this was once quite different, oddly enough.” Jindosh adds. “Despite our current predicament. Which, if I may be so blunt, never would have happened if you could only resist staying away from me.”  
Regardless of your weakened state, you muster the strength to give him a swift kick to the shin. He grunts and puts both palms up as a surrender.   
“You had to go and ruin such a lovely statement, didn’t you? Just couldn’t stop yourself?”  
“Now, now, let’s not start this pattern of behavior again, shall we?”   
“Look, I’m not too prideful to admit that I was rather smitten for you. But that doesn’t mean that you get to pretend like you didn’t feel the same, even for a second.”   
His slender frame resituates itself against the cushioned seat. He tilts his head, his brows knitting together.   
“Was? Only ‘was’?” A sly smile creeps onto his face.   
You think to yourself, He’s the same bastard as he’s always been.   
But then he continues, “But, yes, I’ll admit to it. After seeing you so close to death, I must ask myself what I have to lose in admitting that you had quite the hold on me. And that you still do, quite frankly.”  
All you can do is stare at him while the wind blows your hair, the strands tickling your face.   
He doesn’t seem to be in any sort of discomfort while admitting this. Which only made it more miraculous when he added, “And it’s entirely possible that you’ll always persist.”   
You duck your head to hide the tears prickling at the corners of your eyes. “You shouldn’t have done what you did. Surely you’re capable of understanding that your actions, your words, were inexcusable. And unforgivable. You can’t just say something so—so sincere then just expect everything to be made right—,”  
Throat burning, you stop mid-sentence and try to recollect yourself. It had been months since you’d last felt so vulnerable. “You completely derailed my life. You were cruel and cold to me. You used me. You played games with me, lead me to believe we were something when we weren’t. And I allowed it, endured it, ignored it, played along, and I even . . . I believed it. I felt it. And when you sent me away, I felt like an absolute fool. Everything you’ve ever done to me was on a whim because you wanted to study me. So why should I believe anything you have to say?”   
The air is thick from either the humidity or the silence. Jindosh has one leg tossed over the other, his demeanor rather calm all things considered.   
At last, he speaks, “I disagree.”  
You blink at him.   
“Disa— what?”   
“Disagree. I disagree.”  
Your voice cracks as you exclaim, “What the hell do you mean you disagree?”  
He merely shrugs and leans over to examine the device, noting how much fuel was remaining. “I don’t think it’s that hard to understand. I simply disagree. You say that everything I did was on a whim, and that’s a completely accurate statement. I’ll give you that. But what you’re not considering is that, when you’re someone like myself—which is quite the challenge to imagine, but do please try—you carefully plan for every variable. I knew how to go about improving the price of the clockworks. I had a predicted trajectory on how many I could produce in a month. And I knew where my thoughts would be each second of the day; I knew how much time I would spend adjusting the magnetic coils or re-recording playbacks. Then I suddenly found myself presented with an inconsistent variable that I hadn’t at all anticipated—that being you.   
“You believe that I ‘derailed your life’ but the same could be said about you to my own. For a while there, I genuinely regretted ever hiring you. You were taking up an irreplaceable portion on my day, filling my thoughts, distracting me from my work. I sincerely believed you would be the downfall of my life’s work just by being here.” Here, he paused and made direct eye contact with you. Such an action once would have sent shivers down your spine and caused you to deflect your gaze. “So, I disagree with you. I didn’t derail your life, my dear. We were each other’s undoing.”  
You squint at him, an amalgam of anger and bittersweet affection in your expression.   
“Say it,” you demand.   
It takes the inventor a moment to register what you said. “I beg your pardon?”  
“Say it. You never said it back. Not once. I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you admit it.”  
Realization dawns on him. His arm was propped against the device and as he thought, he clenched and unclenched his fist. In his expression, you could see that he was having an internal struggle with himself. Nothing was said for a few seconds too long; the two of you held eye contact without looking away. In the end, you leaned back in your seat and laughed without humor.   
“Well, there you have it.”   
By the time the two of you arrived in the Batista District, Paolo’s men had swarmed the carriage. They’d been expecting you back a few hours ago and when they caught sight of Jindosh in the carriage sitting across from you, they had sprung into action.   
Unfortunately, they weren’t about to listen to you. No matter how fervently you insisted that Kirin Jindosh was here to help you, they caught one glimpse of your bloodied and bruised self and instantly jumped the inventor. In spite of your defiant pleading.   
Kirin had a rather slim build, so while he was relatively fit and capable of self-defense, he had no chance of fighting off a group of Howlers. Therefore, by the time that Paolo shoved through the crowd, Kirin had a bloodied nose, a collection of bruises, and the beginning of a black eye. Really, he was just lucky that they didn’t stop and think to draw their swords. You went to Jindosh’s side as Paolo managed to calm the mob of Howlers.   
“Lovely company you keep,” he spits a bit of blood onto the cobblestones, “Really, I couldn’t feel more welcomed.”  
At this point, Paolo turns on you and shouts, “What kind of shit are you trying to pull? What the fuck were you thinkin’, bringin’ the damned Grand Inventor into our midst? This wasn’t the plan. Where the hell are Kingsley and Samwell? ‘The fuck happened to you?”  
Paolo, exemplifying why he held command, thought to draw his sword. He aimed it towards you and brought it close to your face. “You better start talkin’ and give me a reason not to kill you both right here.”   
“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” Kirin interjected. Paolo, born and raised with a stone-cold poker face, merely slid his gaze down upon the inventor. He looked to be completely aloof, but you knew otherwise. He had wanted this sort of opportunity for months. Kirin continued, looking a little irritated, “Oh, I beg your pardon. Is that not interesting enough for you? Should I specify? The coup, the empress, the witch. I’ll host a private interview with you—which is the sort of honor most people have to wait months in advance for, mind you. Free of charge.”   
Kirin gave him a wry smile, a dribble of blood running down his chin. He chuckled a little, to himself, likely out of delirious vexation. The grand inventor, kneeling on the cobblestones of the mining district, beaten and disheveled, bargaining with what he considered to be a lowlife. Ha! So quickly, the tides change!  
He glanced over at you, at your pale face and pain-stricken eyes, then down to your wound that you clutch absently.   
Paolo lazily brought the sword’s edge toward Jindosh and skeptically retorted, “You’re a smart man, so I’ve heard. Now, excuse me for being so bold, but you don’t strike me as someone to give in so easily. What’s the catch, here?”  
“It’s me,” you replied weakly, revealing the bloodied part of your shirt where the stitches had broken a bit and you’d bled through. “The plan fell through, boss. It was a disaster. Kingsley jumped the gun and nearly got us all killed.”  
Paolo sneered back in your direction. “Oh, so you were clumsy. Made a mess, did you? Then you were stupid enough to blow this whole operation sky-high by bringing your ass back here, with the god damned Grand Inventor of Serkonos on your heals, begging Paolo for a second chance?” His eyes burn with rage. The Howlers around him shift on their feet, ready for a command. “You fucked up, my friend. And you’re fucking up right now.”  
“Hey now, let’s not be too hasty,” came a familiar voice from the back of the crowd. You felt relief wash over you as Mindy Blanchard sauntered her way to the front of the pack. “Didn’t you hear what the posh prick said? He’s prepared to tell us some valuable information . . . and for free! Sounds like something we should at least consider, right?” She smiled in a very relaxed way, her voice both soothing and oddly powerful. “You know, the rookie didn’t exactly come back empty handed. Might as well hear them out.”  
Paolo stared her down, his hard and angry gaze competing against her calm and unwavering demeanor.   
At last, he swore under his breath and retorted, “If this turns into a shit show, Mindy, you’re the one whose gotta clean it up.”  
“It won’t as long as we don’t kill the grand inventor,” here, she chuckled, “I mean, I think that would probably raise some flags to the Duke, don’t you? Nah, we’re gonna let him go after he tells us what we want to hear.” She bent down and crouched in front of Jindosh. “He’s a smart fucker. He knows we can’t kill him. He didn’t have to come here at all, if he didn’t want to. But here he is, and he’s put a present on our doorstep that we can’t refuse. So, my question is—what’s in it for you, Jindosh?”  
Kirin’s face broke into a small smile before it grew into a grin. You had always imagined that he’d like Mindy if the circumstances ever permitted them to meet. “Intuitive,” he commented before answering her, “I’d like you to take our shared associate here to Aramis Stilton’s mansion. She tells me that ever since Delilah’s last visit to the estate the Howlers have been paid by the Duke to feed and take care of old Aramis. You have access, yes?”  
Paolo’s lip curled a little when he retorted, “Yea, we got the answer to your stupid riddle door.”   
Kirin coughed under his breath, a little derailed, but continued, “Excellent. Then you shouldn’t have any trouble getting her there and setting her up in one of the mansion’s rooms.”  
“That mansion’s a run-down nest of bloodflies!” one of the Howlers called out. Another chimed, “And Aramis Stilton’s a madman!”   
“Yes, but,” you try to stand, but the pain nearly knocks the breath out of you. “But . . . Paolo, you said you felt . . . odd whenever you were in the area. Like the void was right in front of you but just out of your reach.”   
The Howler’s boss looked a little startled at this information, likely because he had relayed it to you while fairly intoxicated one night, revealing to you a severed hand that he always kept on his person, one with a strange tattoo on the back that you had only seen once before—on Delilah’s left hand. It’s properties were foreign to you and even a bit frightening, but you comprehended what he had been trying to say.   
“Delilah’s witches,” you went on, “Their power comes from Delilah, and Delilah’s powers must come from the void. If the void is weak around the estate, for whatever reason, then they won’t come near it. That’s where I need to be.”  
“Why’s that?” Mindy asked, turning her sharp eyes onto you.  
There was no point in withholding information from Mindy, so you admitted, “They’ve been ordered to kill me for my involvement in the coup.”  
There was a moment of silence where Mindy stood up and shared a look with Paolo. Kirin said nothing, merely watching you as your breath became labored with effort. You needed more sedatives and another coat of anti-biotic. Risk of an infection at this point could lead to your death despite all this effort.   
“This is your payment, Jindosh?” Paolo finally asked, “This is all you want in exchange for what you know? Sounds like a trap, to me.”   
Kirin narrowed his eyes and scoffed, “Do you honestly believe I would have put myself in the middle of gang territory without a handful of my clockworks if I was planning on deceiving you? Do you think I would have withstood your men’s polite welcoming for even a second if this were a trap? Come now, let’s be sensible.”  
Mindy tilted her a head. “So this is really all you want? For us to get her to Stilton’s mansion?”  
“And for you to, well, eventually set me free. Yes,” Jindosh drawled, looking quite relaxed all of a sudden despite his predicament. “And I want to make sure she’s fed and taken care of until this all blows over.”  
“And how long will that take?” Asked Paolo, putting away his sword with a deflated sigh.   
“A month, at least.” Jindosh hypothesized, “Until I can find a suitable corpse to act as her replacement and convince Delilah that she died of her wounds. Then I’ll return for her.”  
You’re started by that last comment, your head snapping up. That had never been discussed on the way over or at the mansion.   
He’s going to come back for you when it’s all over.   
The rest of their back and forth seemed to consist of Paolo and Mindy agreeing to Jindosh’s terms and negotiating the means by which they would transport you to the mansion. But you could only think of what he’d said and remember the promise he’d made you so long ago—about starting something new whenever he got his clockwork army. Would you move to Tyvia? To Morley?   
As the gang began to dissipate with Paolo’s orders, you shook yourself out of the stupor.   
\--  
Within the hour, your wound had begun to burn and Jindosh had demanded medical supplies before he even considered telling them what they wanted to hear. Mindy had obliged with an amused smile on her face, watching as the inventor and philosopher applied his limited medical expertise to clean your injury. After he was satisfied and convinced that you weren’t about to perish on the spot, Jindosh traveled with you, Paolo, and two other Howlers to the Stilton estate.   
“There’s a room on the second floor where a ceiling beam’s given out and the floor’s covered in rubble, but there aren’t no bloodfly nests. It’ll have to do.”  
“Part of this agreement is that you feed and look after her while she’s in your care. I want a letter from her every week delivered to my doorstep so that she can update me on her conditions. And I assure you, I can recognized forged handwriting. I’ve got plenty of documents written by her in my care, I’ll know the difference. If she dies, I’ll be sure to send the grand guard your way with their own personal squadron of clockworks.” Jindosh negotiated with a strict expression.   
Paolo cracked a grin and chuckles. “I can’t decide whether I should be pissed off that you’re givin’ me orders or amused that you care about this servant of yours so much.”  
By the time you got to the large gold-encrusted door, your newly applied sedatives had begun to take effect. You could stand up straighter and breathe a bit easier, but still relied on Kirin’s arm to balance you.   
The door had no obvious seams and several rotating tablets with inscribed images on their faces. The riddle itself was in a compartment to the right, but Kirin merely approached the tablets and expertly flipped them all to the correct sequence. You could have sworn he muttered “what a waste” under his breath.   
As the doors opened and Paolo led the group inside, you instantly felt what he had described to you before. The air seemed drier and the silence of the corridor seemed to imply that time stood still. You felt chills run down your spine and subconsciously squeezed the inventor’s arm a little closer to your chest as you proceeded.   
Kirin glanced down at you, having noticed the aura as well, “This isn’t the first time I’ve felt the void. And this particular sensation seems so familiar.”  
At the end of the corridor, Paolo opened up the wooden doors and bright moonlight lit the remainder of the hallway. Up ahead, you could see it—Stilton’s manor. The high stone walls and fountain at the front were covered in weeds and vines. It looked positively abandoned; it’s windows were dark and the glass had been shattered or the frames boarded it. Wind blew through the bowl-like dome and stirred dead leaves and flower bushes from their position. It was eerie.   
Inside the manor, chandeliers littered the floors. Pieces of broken crystal glittered under a layer of dirt and Paolo called over his shoulder, “Watch your step.”   
A tree in the center of the parlor had grown out of control and it’s limbs and roots had taken over the stair case and upper floor. Just beyond a locked hallway door, you could see a bloodfly host shifting about beyond the foggy glass. His groans and moans made your stomach churn, but Paolo assure you there was no way for him to get to you through the debris blocking the entrance.   
The entire way, Jindosh was glancing around, lost in thought. He could remember the manor before—how the guardsmen stood at attention in their shining uniforms and the smell of pumpkin bread from the kitchen. That night, he had been drinking. But he could still remember the sound of music playing from somewhere in the house.   
Now, the only sound to be heard was a discorded piano and the muffle ramblings that must have belonged to Aramis Stilton, echoing from somewhere on the bottom floor.   
His attention returned to you—as it so often did. You wouldn’t be staying here for long; that he could promise. Soon, he’d have you stowed away safely somewhere across the isles. If you’d let him.   
“I suppose it could be worse,” you commented as you step over the fallen beam of wood and make your way to a stale mattress in the corner of the room. “It’s not that different from where I lived in the apartments.” You gave a small, tension breaking laugh that rattled off the walls.   
Paolo’s guys shoved some of the rubble out of the way, then departed back to the main lobby.   
“Alright, safe and sound,” Paolo extended his arms as a gesture of good will. “We’ll give her dinner tonight when we come to feed old Aramis. ‘Til then, you’ve got some talkin’ to do. So let’s get headed back, yea?”  
You felt your stomach drop. They were leaving so soon? You looked to Kirin who seemed unfazed by Paolo’s request. “Certainly. A deal’s a deal, isn’t that right my dear?” He looked to you briefly. “I’ll meet you downstairs in just a moment. I want to check on her injuries one last time before I go.”  
Paolo glanced over his shoulder at you. “No worries, my friend. Paolo’s calmed down. This might all work out; and if your old boss here doesn’t hold back on anything, then you’ll see some supper later tonight.”  
He then shoved his hands into his pockets and sauntered out of the room. Once his footsteps had disappeared, you turned to the inventor and let out a deep breath you’d been holding in.   
He, too, visibly gave away to the tension that had built up inside him. “I’ll be damned, I can’t believe that worked so well.”  
“The information that you’re going to give him—,”  
“—will only apply to Karnaca’s political state after the empress falls. You were perfectly clear about that.”  
“He should only be focused on rising up once the order of things begins to shift,” you assured him, “It’s incredibly unlikely that you’ll even need to mention greater aspects of the coup. But if that arises—“  
“So be it,” Kirin sighed, “I suppose we’re past the bargaining stage now. But fret not, the prototype is still active. I can share as much information as I please without Delilah’s knowledge. Or, at the very least, five or so more hours worth of it.”   
At last, you can collapse onto the musky bed. A cloud of dust arises and you cough a little into the palm of your hand. Jindosh glanced once more around the room. “Only a month,” he promised, “perhaps a little more or a little less. Just until I can secure the manufacturing of clockworks across the isles and until the empress has finally fallen.”  
“Then what?” you asked, your voice sounding much smaller than you had intended it to be.   
He regarded you for a moment before he crossed the rubble and debris to come sit next to you on the bed. “You aren’t hoping to stay a Howler forever, are you? Yes, if I close my eyes, I suppose I can see you as an old hag, riddled with tattoos and missing a few of your teeth. But, surely, you have other aspirations?”  
You offered him a feeble smile. He seemed quite relieved to see it. “No, I suppose it doesn’t suite me as well as it does others.”  
“You have an excellent arm on you, I can give you that,” he absently rubbed his cheek. “But I greatly prefer your penmanship. I don’t often endorse academies—for my own reasons—but I see no reason why you shouldn’t go back and try to finish your education.”  
Smirking, you brushed particles of dust of your trousers. “Even with my time spent here, I’m no richer than I was when I was forced to leave the first time. I can’t afford any academy the isles has to offer. Though, yes, it is a nice idea. Maybe some day.”   
“Tyvia has a splendid array of little institutes,” he countered, “They aren’t up to par with the Academy of Natural Philosophy, no, but I can at least guarantee that you’d be accepted into one of them.”  
You gave him a doubtful look. “No you can’t. No institute would accept an application without some form of payment plan. Not even the small ones. But it’s fine, Kirin—,”  
“Alright, then I’ll pay your way in.”  
The manor seems to fall completely still for a moment as you feel blood rush to your face. “No, no no! I can’t accept that. And you shouldn’t offer that to someone!” Embarrassment flooded your chest and you shook your head. “I couldn’t ever repay you for it, anyway.”  
He looked baffled by this and gave you a hoarse, squawk of a laugh. “Oh, no, you certainly couldn’t. But I’m not asking you to. Any academy Tyvia has to offer would be dirt cheap to me, especially by the time my clockworks rule the isles. It’d be as simple as paying taxes.”  
That’s simple, is it? You couldn’t stop yourself from rolling your eyes. “I can’t accept your offer, you know that.”  
“No, I don’t,” he raised an eyebrow and careened forward a little. “I thought you’d accept instantly.”   
“Why would do that for me? You’ve done enough already. You’ve gotten me to safety, you’ve patched me up. And after you convince Delilah that I’m dead, you can finally be free to focus on your work again. What’s all this talk of coming to get me afterwards and paying for my education?”  
Jindosh looked a little helpless all of a sudden, trying to explain himself without coming outright and saying what’s on his mind.   
You shared his gaze, trepidation mutual between the two of you. “You could just say it, you know. You don’t have to promote me or give me raises or sleep with me to convey what you’re thinking. Just say it.”  
Kirin Jindosh, a man in his forties, had done the impossible several times throughout his life. His favorite pass-time, in fact, was surprising those who didn’t believe in him. Nothing had ever brought him more joy than proving someone wrong. You thought he wouldn’t say it—knew he wouldn’t—so he should have been delighted at the opportunity to surprise you.   
Yet, instead, he stood from the bed and, brushing off his blood stained cuffs, bid you farewell.   
As he crossed the rubble-strewn room, you called out after him, “Answer my question.”  
The grand inventor paused just as the door, his hand on the dulled bronze knob. Your voice reverberated across the room, louder now than before, “You used to love answering my questions. So answer this last one. Why would you do all this for me? Why go to these lengths every time? Do you even know the answer yourself?”  
He was quiet. After a period of suspension, he opened the door and departed through it.   
You stood, your throat burning and your fists clenched. How many times would you allow this man to hurt you before enough became enough?  
Inevitably, you forced yourself to relax. Nothing could be done. Turning around, you started to peel back the dusty covers of the bed, shaking them to get them cleaned off a little. In the meantime, you needed to rest and regain your strength. Who knows when Paolo and Mindy would get done questioning Jindosh; and until then, you’d have to just stay hungry. Really, you just hoped they would remember to bring sedative—,  
The door swung open from behind and Kirin made the journey across the room so quickly that you hardly had enough time to turn around before he had your face in his hands and his lips caught yours. He kissed you for a instant before you shoved him back, searching his face in bewilderment before unchecked emotions broke within you like a dam under too much pressure. You pulled him back into your arms, your hands threading deep into his hair, not caring when he put his hands on your hips and slid them up your back, to your front, down your breasts, and back to your thighs. He smelled like home—like waking up in his bed, like pouring him a drink, like bantering with him in the office while you dusted the book shelves. You hadn’t realized how touch-starved you’d been for him until his grip around you was so unrelenting that you could almost let go of your entire body-weight and he’d still hold you upright.   
At the sound of Paolo’s voice calling from outside, contact was broken and he brought his lips to your ear, whispered a single declaration, then pressed a final kiss to your cheek before he said, “I’ll be back for you. Be ready.”   
Then, he turned his back and left one last time.   
You didn’t see Kirin Jindosh again for a full month. In the month of Harvest, Emily Kaldwin was usurped from her thrown. It was in all the papers, or at least, all the papers that the Howlers brought to the manor. As your wounds closed, you watched new ones open across the empire. Aramis sometimes moaned in prophecies, bits and pieces, as though he knew what was going on beyond the walls despite his state of being. They kept you up at night and you wished more than ever before that you were in your old room on the Armstrong’s estate. You would write to Jindosh, but he never wrote back. In a way, you understood this. It was dangerous to send a letter with his name on it; it was simply wiser to keep his outgoing mail strictly business, rather than it be read by unwanted eyes.   
Still, you longed to be free of Stilton’s Manor. It was dirty, constantly, despite your best attempt to make your living area organized. Rain sometimes dripped through the ceiling boards and around you at night. Fortunately, the Howlers kept their word and brought you medical supplies so the wound in your stomach never became infected. The scar it left, however, was ghastly and acted as a memento of the grand inventor.   
Who, as the days passed, started to worry you.   
He was a figure that had always been in the lime-light. But now that his involvement in the coup was known around the isles, he was getting much more attention than ever before. And maybe he liked it that way, but it made you incredibly nervous. You kept updated on Emily Kalwin’s escape from custody and her supposed trek across the empire. You had sent a letter to Kirin, expressing your worry for him. But, again, he hadn’t responded.   
Eventually, you became so distressed that you requested for no more newspapers to be brought to you.   
His home was the safest place he could be. You kept reminding yourself of the horrors that lied within the walls. People would get trapped in there all the time. Sometimes he’d let them die in there, or sometimes he’d let them out after a few days, just to watch them scamper away. This decision was always on a whim. You’d gotten lost within it during the first week of work there and the presence of the clockwork soldier served as a constant reminder to guests and servants alike that Jindosh was well-protected.   
And yet.   
You knew how he liked to play his games, toy with his prey instead of taking the kill. You worried that he would invite the empress into his home and test her rather than kill her right away. And although you wanted to believe Kirin wouldn’t risk his own life to prove his intellectual and tactical superiority, you knew him all too well at this point.   
“Please,” you wrote in your last letter to him, “Please come get me. We can leave tomorrow night and sail for Tyvia. She won’t come for you as long as you’re out of the picture. The clockworks—they aren’t worth your life. Delilah has what she wants now, what more could she ask of you? I’m begging you, fulfill your promise.”  
And finally, this time, he wrote you back. 

My dear,   
You have such little faith in me—it is nearly devastating! I have Anton Sokolov in my clutches as we speak and I am so close to getting what I want out of him. If this works as I expect it to, then clockwork production will be set into motion and I can finally trust the dimwitted minds of even the lowest factory worker to construct my army. I promised you a month, but this will require at least two more weeks. Be patient. You of all people should know the willpower of my determination. How can you ask me to stop, now that I am so close?   
Remember what I told you. I meant it, sincerely. You know better than to doubt me.   
Yours truly,   
Kirin Jindosh

You held the letter in your hands and reread the words, running your fingers over the perfect handwriting.   
\--  
It was now the first week of the Month of Nets. Your wounds had healed.   
Without your knowing it, Emily Kaldwin had undone history on Aramis Stilton’s estate. To you, the manor had always been in a glamourous and presentable state. By rewriting history, Emily had also changed bits and pieces of your reality.   
The witch who had witnessed you get stabbed at the clockwork mansion had believed you to be dead instantly. In this timeline, you had lost consciousness on the spot. While she delivered the news to Delilah, Kirin had taken you to the Howlers and negotiated with them as he had in the original timeline. However, there was no void-dispelling mansion to go to, so he worked tirelessly to keep the prototype Oraculum working throughout the night. It, as you had predicted, ran out of whale oil and ultimately shut down several times throughout a twenty-four hour long effort to keep you alive. No witches ever came, but Mindy had posted Howlers outside your room and within your room each night. Kirin had stayed by your side as well, a nervous wreck behind his thin façade.   
Then, in the morning, he bid you farewell and departed.   
In this reality, he never had the chance to tell you he loved you. And he never would again.  
But still, there was an odd echo in the back of your mind. If you concentrated, you could almost hear him say . . . ah, perhaps it was nothing.   
Other than this, very minor changes occurred. You had more money in your pockets, your wound was an inch farther to the left, and you instead spent your month continuing as a Howler. However, Kirin had still promised to come back for you. A promise that, in this timeline, you didn’t hardly believe.   
He still sent you that final letter, though the last line of it was missing.   
You kept it under your pillow at night and sometimes took it out, trying to reassure yourself that he would, in fact, come back for you.   
Then, you got the morning paper. 

THE SILVER SPIKE – Genius Inventor Can Barely Recall His Own Name!  
Kirin Jindosh loses his smarts in a bold experiment gone wrong! You know him as the Grand Inventor, the genius of our time! But that was before his latest experiment went somehow wrong, leaving the man a blubbering shell of his former self! Scandalous, but true.   
Servants are gleefully coming forward with stories of the once great inventor now barely able to navigate from room to room. One woman claims that Jindosh is now unable to determine which way to turn a simple bolt. "Everyone knows it's righty-tighty," she said. Another wondered openly whether Jindosh may have been using his pupils' ideas all along, faking his genius to gain reputation.  
Allegedly a cruel employer, sadistic in his dismissal of his staff's basic needs, there is one curious turn in this story. Those closest to the inventor claim that he is now gentle as a lamb.

You had re-read it several times. Ran your fingers over the printed ink.   
But still, you couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it.   
“You’re good to go,” Paolo said to you. He had read the same paper earlier that morning and had in fact been the one to hand it to you. “If he really meant something to you, then I ‘spose you should go see if it’s true.”  
Wordlessly, you folded the newspaper and slid it into your pack. Paolo continued, “You’ve always got a place here, you know that. I know we’ve had our disagreements, but you’ve done good work here. Don’t forget about us, my friend. We’re gonna be big soon, just you wait.”  
Then you packed your things and left within three hours. Mindy had waved you goodbye from one of the second floor balconies, a cigarette between her lips and a solemn look to her eyes.   
As it would turn out, Jindosh’s mansion had already been swarmed by the Duke’s men. When you got there, Kirin Jindosh was no where in sight and his serving staff were milling around aimlessly, looking as confused as you were.   
“They just took ‘em this morning,” said a maid you were once familiar with, “He’d been wondering around the halls at night, getting lost in his own maze. He was a danger to himself, that’s for sure. My question now is—what’s to become of us?”   
So, from there, you tried to gather where he’d been taken. You wouldn’t believe anything you had heard until you saw him for yourself, but this was proving to be quite difficult. The serving staff was clueless and the grand guard barked at you if you even so much as asked for him by name. Within a week, you hadn’t heard any news on whether or not Kirin Jindosh was even still in Karnaca. For all you knew, the Empress could have planned to come back for him and finish the job.   
Wondering the streets and asking questions wasn’t getting you anywhere, so you applied for a job near the Cyria Gardens—as a maid. Since the coup, no one bothered with the smaller rumors anymore like who you had worked for or why. But it didn’t hurt to mention that you worked for Kirin Jindosh; in fact, it landed you a job almost instantly with some curious nobleman who asked you a thousand questions about the Grand Inventor.   
“Is it true that he had always been a nitwit, merely stealing his ideas from his academy colleagues? Did you see it happen to him, or even, what exactly happened to him? Was he ever a genius at all?”  
These sorts of inquiries infuriated you, but you answered them politely in order to secure your position. The uniform he gave you felt so nostalgic to put on; it so clearly resembled the one you had worn at the mansion.   
Your heart clenched whenever you remembered. Surely, this was all a lie. What possibly could have happened to him?   
A week and a half passed while you worked for this nobleman. The Royal Conservatory’s curator was the new topic of gossip. The Nobleman and his guests spoke openly about every rumor they heard. As they smoked and visited in the parlor, you swept the dining area and wiped down the windows.   
“Did you hear?” said one of the rich women he had for company one summer night, “Hypatia has reopened Addermire!”   
“I was wondering when she’d finally get back to business. That fortress of an institute has looked desolate for almost a year!”   
“Yes, yes, I know what you mean. But she’s back now and that’s not all! She’s started a new wing for patients to stay and recover under her care—and you’ll never guess who one of them is!”  
Your ears perked up to this and you slowed your sweeps with the broom.   
“Oh, don’t play games with me, Abby. Tell me!”   
The rich woman sipped her wine with a playful smile on her face. She toyed with the nobleman for a moment before finally bursting out in to a tipsy giggle. “Why, none other than Kirin Jindosh, of course!”  
\--  
The next day, you called in sick and promptly took the first available carriage to Addermire institute. It might have gotten you fired, but you could have cared less as Addermire’s white walls and glittering glass windows came closer and closer into view. The nobleman had been right—the institute must have been in bad shape because there were several crews of brawny men repairing the outside of the structure while others were cleaning and replacing pieces for the inside. The elevator was out of order, having crashed down all the way to the bottom most floor. The stairs to Alexandria Hypatia’s office seemed to fly past you as you ran up them.  
The good doctor was a kind woman—perhaps the kindest person you had spoken to in nearly a year. When she turned to you with a warm smile and asked you what she could help you with, you burst into tears like a child confronted by her mother’s caring support. Hypatia, while a little startled, moved to comfort you as you explained who you were and how you got to be here. Her eyes seemed to flicker with doubt and disapproval when you revealed who you had come for and why. It was clear to you that she disliked the grand inventor, and yet she had made the choice to help him recover. She seemed conflicted.  
“Is it what people say it is?” you ask, bent over in her office armchair with a handkerchief in your hands. “Is he really . . . ?”  
Hypatia sums you up in her mind and lets out a calm sigh. She stands and places a soft hand on your shoulder. “It’s best if you see him for yourself.”  
As Hypatia lead you down the corridors of the recovery wing, she could only think to herself: How could someone love that man? And how could someone love him so deeply? She remembered Jindosh in bits and pieces, memories from Grim Alex that were hers, but at the same time, foreign. He had been almost as much of a monster as Grim Alex herself. Just colder and more calculating. Prideful. Arrogant. Cruel.   
She glances down at your puffy red eyes, focused on the journey, and she still can’t wrap her head around your story and your reasoning.   
When the two of you reached the designated room, Hypatia had stopped you outside of the door.   
“Now, I’m afraid his recovering is a tricky one. I don’t approve of the Empress’s choice in eliminating Jindosh as a threat, so I’m not opposed to helping him along the way. But . . . he has the mentality of a child. From what I’ve witnessed, this comes and goes. He has brief moments where he’s his old self and in those moments . . . he’s difficult to be around. He’s lashed out and gotten angrier and angrier each time. But beneath the rage, there’s just despair. He knows what’s happened to him and he’d conscious of what you’re saying even when he’s not . . . himself. Just the other day, I asked something offhandedly while he was in his docile state, then an hour later, when he was coherent, he answered me with his old fervor and intellect. But, within moments, he was gone again.   
“I might be able to help him with his rehabilitation, but it would help if someone from his . . . old life would come by each day and perhaps jog his memory? If you’re comfortable, of course.”  
You swallowed, hard, then nodded.   
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Hypatia with a sad smile. “Alright, before you go in, please keep in mind that . . . this isn’t the man you knew. But that man is still somewhere inside. And he can be reached if you try hard enough.”  
-  
In thirty minutes, you found yourself outside in Hypatia’s green house. Kirin referred to it as a “garden” several times, pleading with you to take him outside for a walk. He explained to you, in a few words, that he liked to hunt for colorful bugs and flowers that littered the greenhouse. You sat and stared as he dug up the beetles under the shrubbery and carefully brushed the dirt off of them. He seemed particularly keen to the green ones, as he would toss the brown and black ones over his shoulder.   
She had been right. This was not the man you knew.   
“Look,” he instructed, bringing of them over to you. The jar next to him swarmed with bugs nearly identical to the beetle he presented. He plucked off one of the beetle’s legs and watched it squirm in agony. “It’s so easy,” he says, mesmerized. “Like pulling teeth.”  
You feel bile rise in your throat, but swallow it. “That’s true,” you say, but your voice is lacking in emotion. “But you shouldn’t do that. It hurts them.”  
Kirin’s face—the same face you had looked into a thousand times—wrinkles with confusion. “Then what do you do with them?”  
You look out over the ocean, defeated. Ultimately, you said, “You could give them names, I suppose. Then set them free and try to find them again tomorrow.”  
The man stares down at the beetle in his grasp before tossing it into the jar with the others. “Alright,” he agrees with a sort of chipper smile, “I’ll set them free today, then when you come again tomorrow, we can name them together.”  
You look into his eyes but can’t see any trace of his former self within them. He awaits your response, but you feel like your mouth has been glued shut. Ten years. You had promised him at least ten years of service. And maybe it would take even longer for him to fully recover, who knew. All that was certain, right now, was that there could be hope. Hope of getting him back, at least just a little. Hope of getting to hear him say your name again and having casual banter once more. You reach out and run a gentle hand down the former inventor’s cheek, surprising him. His fingers flitter up and, mindlessly, he rubs his thumb in circles over the back of her hand. In one breath, he mutters your name and his eyes flicker to life for just a split second. Then, he’s gone again and his hand falls heavily to the table once more.   
He seems confused for a moment while you return your own hand to your side, fighting back your grief and trying hard to appear strong—knowing that he could see you beyond the veil that was this stranger in front of you.  
As he reverted back to his child-like state, Kirin asked again, “You’ll help me name them tomorrow, yes? The beetles.”  
You take a breath, count to ten, then answer with a smile, “I’d like that, yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> So I know that the loading dock isn’t an actual floor in Jindosh’s home but like…how does he ship them off to people? Do they just strap them to the top of the carriages? Fictitious loading dock area it is then.


End file.
